Board Games For Christmas

Forget those electronic toys you were going to give that nephew or niece on your Christmas gift list. What's old sometimes becomes new again, and what is becoming a popular Christmas gift today might surprise you. There's been a steady resurgence in vintage board game popularity for the last several years. The children of the generations like mine who played board games so obsessively in their youth now have children of their own, and they want them to feel the same joy and excitement they originally felt when playing these games. So, next to the ipod under the Christmas tree at many homes this year might be is a vintage board game like Aggravation, Monopoly, or Careers.

I used to love playing board games as a kid, but strangely, I abhor the computer games of today. There is something different about seeing a board on the floor and manipulating the parts that go with it. Electronics are too sterile for me to embrace, and that includes board games that have been translated into electronic forms. Give me the board format or don't give me the game. I think Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, even classic Checkers....would endure if parents more often offered them to their kids. And who can forget family board game events and how much they help to tie family members together? There is a magic in playing a game that one can see and feel. That magic doesn't often exist in electronic versions.

Here in Portland I see quite a few board game clubs available that consist of adult who remember, love and still try to play (if they can find anyone willing) board games. Most members claim the board games allow them to relax, get away from electronics and relive memories of youth, when board games ruled in a non electronic society. The fact that the best board games are simple to play is also probably an appeal to them.
One of the joys of playing board games is they are communal events.

When playing a board game one does it with others, not alone with a keyboard and the alienated glare electronic devices emit, the "I love my technology above all" look that electronic addicts give us. Too, whether one wins or loses the board game matters very little. It's a low pressure "fun" activity that encourages conversation and interactions among the participants.

Jane took some of the board games with us when we moved to Oregon, and many teens still love the classic "Twister" game. But without a big push advocating them, parents would have little success interesting kids today in playing them. Kids need to rediscover what they are missing. Hmmmm I wonder if there is a board game that encourages kids to play board games.

Old Recipes

It's holiday time and that always means (for me at least) pulling out traditional recipes for holiday food dishes. I think I still cook some of those things the way my mom and her mom used to cook, not so much because their recipes are better (but they often are), but rather because it is a tie to my ancestors. My mom and her mom are long gone, but they live on in their recipes that I have kept after their passing. It is good.

My mother left behind most of hers and her mom, the Irish connection in my genes, was as all Irish women seem to be, more of a baker than general cook. From her I have some recipes for sweets (I remember often making her Irish ice box cookies with her when I was a child). I have no idea what happened to her general cooking recipes because my mother didn't have them either. And the best cook in the family, my dad's mother, left no recipes behind. It is a pity that is so, but I think she was one of those master cooks who never wrote anything down, given everything she cooked was the best thing one had ever eaten.

I'll leave my recipes to Jane, but I think she is too disinterested to even keep them, much less cook them. Kids today are so a wired (addicted) to electronic technology, many have no time or inclination to cook. It is sad because cooking is about the cheapest therapeutic regimen one can use to reduce stress or melancholy.

Doesn't it seem we all have at least one signature food recipe from our relatives that we ourselves reproduce at holiday times? From my mom's mom it is her lemon pie and from my mother her cheesecake, the simple one everyone clamors for once tasted. Sometimes I want to hide at Christmas because those who have eaten my cheesecake (but maybe I am just an agent for my late mother since it is her recipe I use and I should say it is "her" cheesecake) want me to make it. Well, I am "in culinary hiding" in Portland now where they don't know about such things. Sometimes separation from one's familiar venue is an advantage.

I don't feel it is Christmas until I make that cheesecake. And too, having made so many holiday cookies with Jane during her lifetime I am hoping she may inherit that lone cooking tradition from me and make cookies with her own kids some day. Some of those recipes from my grandmother are faded and some even too hard to read. But my mom's are newer and mostly in tact. A few of my favorites from her seem to be missing.
When my mother died and I took her recipes, both orderly in files and scattered on paper all about, I found a personal letter from my mother and a friend of hers in her recipe files.

That was a nice, unexpected find, the sugar on top of the recipe file because it reminds me of her even more than do the recipes. I guess I'll soon make that cheesecake and the memories of those recipes will make it taste even better than it will be.

To Many Ears Listening

I saw a TV commercial the other day that actually got my attention. In fact, TV itself usually doesn't get my attention. I think the low level of commercials reflects the low level of TV, but that's a subject for another day. This commercial advertisement is for the Sonic Earz line that sells for under $20 and claims to make sounds and voices clear to the ear by using hearing amplification and "a new hearing aid technology". The Sonic Earz hearing aid is said to be better than most average listening devices. It is designed to help you clearly hear up to 30 yards away. (Oh, my. It reads here as if I am advertising that.)

It also has a volume control switch to select the sound level desired and can be worn in the ear much as a hearing ad is. But this product is clearly not for people with hearing problems. It is not usable as hearing aid and the commercial shows some rather intrusive uses. In one segment, a man is chatting with another and tells him, " I'm going to ask Karen to marry me". Of course, sneaky Karen is conversing with another person way across the room, but hears her boyfriend declare his proposal intention ahead of the actual proposal moment. She smiles radiantly because she has effectively spied on his conversation. Good luck to that man in his marriage to Karen. I think she will keep a very close tab on all he does.

But wait! I looked online and found there are manyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy listening devices just like that one. It seems the technological boom includes finding more ways to betray the trust of others by using technology to spy on others. I wish I could find a privacy device that would block the spies. Yet, no one is offering that kind of block.
I think as our privacy becomes more rare and more dear, that a device that blocks the spies and other technology could be the next product sensation. It should be my right to have my stupidity not broadcast to anyone else, without my approval. people should be able to tell my many defects just by observing me face to face.

Gifting

What's going on with gift giving in this materialistic age of ours? Christmas now seems more like looting and pillaging than giving and receiving. Getting gifts at holiday time is no longer about the special delightful something from one to another. Rather, it's more that people have gotten mercenary about the whole idea of the Christmas gift. Those who receive the gifts are now are an increasingly difficult crowd to please, as they are picky and demanding in what they "get" They are treating even loved ones like catalogs or department stores, shoving lengthy wish lists in the face of the givers, demanding gift cards or saying "give me cash".

I am guilty of giving those gift cards. They are an easy gift and never seem to disappoint. But it sure would be nicer if people today would appreciate less material objects and cash, and instead something "given from the heart". I suppose I am an anachronism, from a time when a small box of hand made, home decorated, Christmas cookies was the best gift one could get because it took time and effort by the giver to make it. Make something for me, anything personal, and I will treasure that gift above all the more material ones. The cost of the object given should be irrelevant. But this was the custom of the era in which I was raised. Christmas was not about accumulating loot, but rather being nice to each other and saying or showing that "I appreciate or love you".

In a recent Harvard Business School, published in March in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, five experiments demonstrated that people accrued more pleasure and were more appreciative of a gift if it was something they themselves had requested. (The "I want, me, me" mentality of a toddler) What's more, the study's subjects rated givers as more thoughtful if they gave from a wish list. So, if the receiver asks for something and you give them something else, you are a loser for doing it. Sigh.

The study also showed that the givers wrongly imagined that their gifts would be equally appreciative of gifts that hadn't been asked for. They were also mistaken in believing a gift of cash would be less welcome. It looks like we now have have greedy receivers and clue less givers. Ho Ho Ho. This view of entitlement (I am entitled to get whatever gift I want) is a microcosm of the age of entitlement in which we live. You know, the one where the individual wants and expects the government or someone else to take care of all his or her needs.

The material objects, personified by the "I must have latest gadget of the month to be trendy" mentality, have become more and more important because there is just so much more choice than previously. It's greed. People today are more greedy because they have sold out to technology and material showiness. It's why Christmas has become a materialistic orgy unlike any other time before. The traditional practice of gift giving is supposed to be about noticing a person's interests and thinking about what they might like to buy, something that you believe will please them. 'It's the thought that counts' is no longer valid with many people? Now that thought is considered to be only for suckers. Now it's, "Let me tell you what I want," or better yet, "Give me the money and I'll get it myself."

Besides the greed for particular expensive gifts, gift lists have also expanded greatly. It used to be that in ancient times, that people gifted up to the person with a higher social status. Now you have to gift down to everyone, the garbage man who picks up your trash, the hair dresser, the postman... everyone you deal with. It's all because today the mantra today is "Show me the gift, the gift I want".
Uh, no gift is required after reading this...

Christmas Tree Or Holiday Tree

The annual, "is it Christmas or "the Holidays" war is raging here in the U.S. again. The latest volley was fired by Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee who has decided to call the blue spruce erected in the Rhode Island Statehouse a "holiday tree" instead of a "Christmas tree". It seems that Chafee is more devoted to not offending voters than to the reality that the tree is up because it represents Christmas, not a generic holiday.

Hmmm I am not sure anyone who isn't Christian or believes in Christmas really cares that there is a Christmas tree promoting that holiday. Evidently, Chafee thinks that calling Christmas "Christmas" will offend those who don't celebrate it. People who come to see the tree in the State House obviously believe in celebrating Christmas or they would not show an interest in the Christmas tree. Those who want to avoid it can look the other way. Christians have rights too. Must I stop eating ham for Christmas so as not to offend the people whose religion forbids the eating of pork? Should be change the name of 'Ramadan' to 'Muslim Festival'?

This country has no official religion, and that includes Christianity. But Christmas trees and the Christmas holiday isn't year round. Like Muslim holidays, Jewish holidays and other religious holidays it is acknowledged by the state and when Christmas day comes and goes the trees, decorations and Christmas celebrations are put away. I wonder what Chafee would call the Hanukkah Menorah or the Islamic crescent? It is sad that such a secular spirit of political correctness has swept over this country. The Governor's decision ignores long held American traditions and is an affront to the faith of many citizens. If I were Islamic I would be nervous at a governor who so brazenly denies or alters Christmas, as in "first they killed Christmas and then they killed Ramadan".

Trying to be "inclusive" by changing a holiday to nullify what it actually is (in this case Christmas) merely kills the holiday for everyone. Declaring everyone the winner of a race, for example, doesn't really make them all winners. Maybe we should all celebrate what holidays we want to celebrate, and not change them all to generic mush that mean nothing more than political correctness. It's the only way genuine respect can be gained for all people, regardless of religion or belief.

Top Baby Names

BabyCenter.com has released it's annual list of most common American baby names. More than 300,000 new parents registered new baby names in 2011. The site's 12th annual top-100 survey finds Sophia for girls and Aiden for boys as most popular names in 2011. Some parents want to steer clear of the most common names (my 'James' used to be one of those, before television and mass communication made other celeb names more appealing), so they seek out lists like the one at BabyCenter.com and of course now love to name their child after some mythical character in a TV show or perhaps after a celebrity they know nothing about. Then other parents make up a name that has no real meaning( which can scar the kid for life when the name is laughable or unpronounceable).

For example, one baby name near the top ten names this year is the one soccer star David Beckham and wife Victoria choose for their daughter, the formerly rarely used name of "Harper" I guess Aunt Hazel won't see her name used for her niece's first born. Today it's about fancy and trendy, when naming newborns. A largest obstacle children face today are stupid parents who worry about how a name will look on a resume' or are influenced by a celebrity's choice of their baby's name. Stupid parents begat stupid kids, and looking at the names given to a baby can sometimes reveal that.

The top ten for boys this year is: 1. Aiden 2. Jackson 3. Mason 4. Liam 5. Jacob 6. Jayden 7. Ethan 8. Noah 9. Lucas 10. Logan
For baby girls the top ten is: 1. Sophia 2. Emma 3. Isabella 4. Olivia 5. Ava 6. Lily 7. Chloe 8. Madison 9. Emily 10. Abigai

That's not too off the beaten path, but then there are some names that defy explanation. Yes, I am going to give you a few of the more bizarre ones too. These came from various sources on the web.

* Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K- Yes, that's right: a baby named after the illicit drug ketamine. Oh, and that's pronounced "Your Highness," by the way.
* GoldenPalace.com Silverman- Mr. and Mrs. Silverman should be ashamed they picked this one. In 2005, the Internet casino GoldenPalace.com paid $15,000 to name a baby after itself. Surely, normal people condemned this sort of outrageous publicity stunt, but those with no brains or no taste will do anything for cash. Shame on the Silvermnan's for doing it.
* Batman Bin Superman- This baby is from Singapore and is named after not just one, but two super heroes: Batman and Superman.
* Dick Assman- Haha He has both ends covered. Dick is a gas station owner in Saskatchewan, Canada, who no doubt has a suitable rest room for customers to use. Dick says his German last name of "Assman" is pronounced as "uzman," in Germany. Those Canadians must have dirty minds...
* Tu Morrow- TV star Rob Morrow and actress Debbon Ayre, might think it's cute to combine first and last names in this way, but chances are, their kids won't think it's so adorable when they grow up and have to explain why their idiotic parents branded them this way.
* Facebook- I don't know the last name of that unfortunate child. Frankly, I am afraid to find out. The dad was quoted as saying he named his son 'Facebook' because he wanted "to honor the social networking site for its role in raising awareness about escalating discontent in the country, and for distributing logistical information about pro democracy, anti-government demonstrations in the lead-up to Mubarak's resignation." No I don't know if Facebook has a sister named 'Twitter'.

Oh well, names stick to people and the most absurd ones stick far more firmly.

Post Office Decline

I know I hate new technology too much but much of it is mindless, anti intellectual and destructive. Well, the latest assault, indirect though it may be, on the good old, by the awful new, is the threat to the time honored national Post Office. Electronic communication is killing the Post Office as more people shift to the informal method of electronic communication or the faster business communication e mail, offers. The U.S Post Office continues to lose billions of dollars because of bloated labor contracts that it must pay for it's huge work staff for and the continual decrease in people paying for traditional post office services.

I still use the post office for most communication, but finding one to go to now is getting harder as more and more are closed by the Post Office in an attempt to operate more efficiently. And now the Post Office has announced that it is going to move quickly to close 252 of the 461 current mail processing centers, and that it will slow first-class delivery next spring. The Post Office cites steadily declining mail volume (volume of first class mail in 2020 is expected to be only one half of what it was in 2000). This means there will be less timely delivery of mail and, hence, more people likely to stop using what has become a "slow" service when compared to the electronic counterparts. Average delivery time for delivery of a letter within the country will increase by one or two days after the processing centers are closed.

The cuts are part of $3 billion in reductions aimed at helping the Post Office avert bankruptcy next year. It would virtually eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day, a change in first-class delivery standards that people won't like. Everyday users of first-class mail will see delays of one or two days, including those who pay bills by check, send birthday cards, write letters, or receive prescription drugs or Netflix DVDs by mail. Speed of delivery is very important in this impatient age of humanity. No doubt it will make many turn to electronic mail instead.

A nation can't survive without a postal system, so if this one fails private companies like Fed Ex would pick up some of the services (those from which it can make money). Yet, I wonder if the long lost art of letter writing and sending by post would disappear forever. It makes me shudder to think that intelligent, thoughtful letters would disappear in favor of the LOL mentality of texting or the grammar and usage from Hell that we experience in many E mails we receive. I think the world will be a much less pleasant place without the option of a postal delivery system.

Too, there is a unique social value of post offices in the sheer diversity and range of services provided that distinguishes them from other (private) retailers. The Post Office is also highly valued and trusted compared to other retailers in disadvantaged communities (rural areas cut off from modernity). I wrote "trusted" here, as in would you trust the post office more or less than FED Ex? I see the post office like the old barber shop, the corner bakery, the Town center and other time worn institutions that make life a little simpler and more pleasant. Budgets and operating efficiency are important today, but the Post Office is like our baby. It needs our attention and love at all costs.