Two Small Decisions With a Big Impact

1) The Christmas Truce:

The Christmas train is something that I would like to get off of. I'm tired of the materialism, the stress, and the all-consuming insanity that comes with the holiday season. I prefer to focus on the friends/family/fun aspect of the holidays instead of the materialistic dilemmas of "What do I buy for Aunt Becky? Is this too expensive? But she spent so much on me last year!" I've even noticed that I've fallen into ruts with my gifting partners where we end up trading gift cards of the same amount. Why not just cut out the materialism if you're just trading equally?

The whole gifting situation is ridiculous and kind of a bummer, so my family and I started approaching extended family/friends asked if they wanted to skip gifts this year. It's definitely a weird and awkward subject to bring up, but everyone's had the same reaction: "Ohmygoodnessthatwouldmakemylifeeasier YES!"

You guys, this is SO liberating and it allows everyone to focus on the more important, and dare I say fun, aspects of the holidays like kindness, togetherness, and charity. Save your sanity and suggest skipping the gifts this year.


2) No More Secrets:
I used to be a huge fan of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. I'm a sucker for all that glitter and gloss. Sometimes the musical guest was worth watching and sometimes the outfits could inspire my costuming work. However, every year I would get a VSFS self esteem hangover where I couldn't help but feel that I was "less than".

Isn't that depressing? I'm not the only one out there--I mean look at how they market the whole thing: It emphasizes and glorifies being "sexy" while only using a very specific type of woman who is nearly 6 feet tall, has a perfect, slim body, usually long wavy hair, and impeccable makeup. I am just over 5 feet, what many would describe as "curvy", with short hair, and I'm lucky if I make it out the door with only BB Cream on. So that's why I decided to give it up--And since it aired the other night, I don't have any feelings of "Oh geez there are so many things WRONG with me!!!!11!!" What an easy fix to a sad situation.