Christmas: Gifts
Last Christmas was tricky. Louisette (then aged nearly-6) well and truly understood Christmas, and she knew exactly what she wanted. . . and was loudly disappointed when a gift didn’t live up to her expectations.
She’s a sweet girl really, and we’ve had a lot of conversations since then about how to react when you don’t like a present, including the fact that she can secretly come to me if she truly doesn’t like something and I’ll buy it off her.
This year both kids have been pure adorable. So that’s nice! TJ has been opening incredibly random items and saying things like, “This is what I always wanted!” which is hilarious.
(Those are not oars, by the way. They’re novelty pool noodles; one with a unicorn head and tail and the other with a shark head and tail.)
There is a fundamental problem that permeates virtually every aspect of parenthood. Every parent wants to make their kid’s life better than what they experienced. Did they always desperately want that one special toy? Did they wish with all their heart that they didn’t have to share a room with their siblings?
So we give our kids what we never had… and they take that as normal, because for them it is. Yay. And then they want a BIGGER room, and a more expensive toy… and the parents are left wondering how their kids became so spoiled and ungrateful.
My only advice is to say ‘no’ often, and stick to it. But choose your moment to say “no”, and choose your moment to say “yes”, too. And teach your kids that life is never perfect, but if they work hard and make sacrifices, they can probably get a bigger room (or whatever) when they’re an adult. They still won’t be able to get everything they want, but they can choose what to give up and what really matters.
I looove buying gifts for my kids. But I do get stressed when there are toys all over the floor and/or no room to move because there’s just so much STUFF in my house.
Some parents incorporate charitable giving in their family Christmas traditions (I really like TEAR Australia’s Really Useful Gift Shop for that—keeping in mind that it’s usually more efficient for recipients if you simply give a donation and let the charity sort out where it’s most useful at the time).
There is a famous ‘list’ going around (if you know the original source/s, let me know):
Something you want
Something you need
Something to wear
Something to read
And there are a couple of variations: Something to do and something to love.
I think most kids would be annoyed at getting something they need and/or something to wear. How would you feel to get a new school uniform under the tree? So I personally would only use those if I wanted a few extra things to wrap (and I thought I could get away with it… it very much depends on the kid and the age).
Having said that, TJ is getting an insulated lunch box for Christmas (he’s going into pre-school so he’ll be taking in his own lunch for the first time… and the lunch box has dinosaurs on) and Louisette received drink bottles (Doc Macstuffins ones).
So there’s a different between getting something plain and something that feels special, even when it’s something the kid legitimately needs. But I’d still advise caution.
And I definitely think every xmas gift list should include something to DO. A puzzle, construction set, activity book, etc etc.
In all honesty, one of the reasons I like getting the kids gifts is so that they bother me less when I’m trying to work. Is. . . is that the real meaning of Christmas?
I usually buy more than 4 presents, but then “sell” several to relatives who want to give the kids gifts and ask me what to get them. (FYI That kind of relative is the BEST.) But four gifts is usually plenty.
My mum tends to buy a LOT of gifts (it’s her love language, and definitely expressed in quantity), and one will be the ‘main’ present—considerably more expensive than the rest. That’s a good system in its own right, although not well suited to those who get stressed by large amounts of cheap plastic nonsense in their house.
Sidebar: Christmas is a great time to have family members with inattentive ADD (aka Chris and Louisette). This year Louisette was looking through photos on my phone when she came across a gift I bought for her. It’s literally sitting on our couch, out of the packaging—I took the photo for Chris since I thought he should know what I was spending all our money ON before I wrapped it. It’s a Doc Macstuffins pet carrier including a pet, and one of Louisette’s biggest gifts (she’s obsessed with Doc Macstuffins at present).
“Oh, Mum!” she says. “That is so cute. It would be a really great gift for me for Christmas.”
Me: *internally swearing* Hmm? Oh yes, it’s very cute.
Aand… she accepted that, and has forgotten all about it.
And of course, as far as adult presents go… it’s all about books for me. I buy lots for others, carefully chosen (I get all bewildered with friends who don’t love fantasy novels, but I do like one or two non-fantasy books a year so that’s handy). It’s tradition in my family to read a book before giving it to someone, and then give a kind of review as part of the gift. “This is so deliciously eccentric; you’ll love it” “Watch out! It’s a 4-book series and the cliffhanger at the end of Book 3 will drive you nuts” etc. Great tradition.
I get quite stressed nowadays when I receive physical books, because I vastly prefer reading on my kindle (it’s easier on my wrists and neck). So that’s awkward. But they’re still books, and books are always good.
Between Chris and I, Christmas is an excuse to buy something way more expensive than we’d normally buy for ourselves. Chris is getting ug boots (he likes ‘proper’ ones, and wears them constantly around the house), and I’ve already ordered and received a made-to-order corset from Gallery Serpentine (they make high-quality corsets and are the go-to shop for Canberrans despite the fact they’re based in Sydney).
For many years, when I was living on very little (there were times when I didn’t have enough to eat three meals a day), Christmas was all about tricking people into buying necessities for me, like clothes or a secondhand microwave. My finances revolved around Christmas, and I’d carefully think about what I needed most, that could appear to be a fun and frivolous gift. There are definitely others out there going through the same thing. If you know your friends are super pov, a gift of shoes can make a big difference (obviously you have to figure out where they’d like to buy shoes from, and give them a voucher). Or a gift basket of food (either sensible or silly; both are expensive). Or something they can regift to someone else, because of course gift-giving is very hard when you’re too poor to afford anything much.
Christmas, commercialism, and the sheer push-and-pull of STUFF are all inextricably bound together. It’s worth thinking about what you really want, and what you really want to give.
Christmas: Jesus, Gifts, and Stress
So Christmas is about three things for me. (Cunning readers may guess what they are based on the title.)
This is the beginning of a three-part blog series on Christmas (aka holiday therapy for yours truly).
Fairly obviously for a Christian, Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus aka the God I follow. Yes, I’m aware that the date is wrong and most of the traditions are stolen/borrowed from Pagan traditions, etc etc.
Still.
It is extraordinary that my God chose to set up a universe in which he himself would be required to be tortured and killed and condemned in order to show us in the clearest possible terms that being “saved” is a gift that he desperately wants to give us. Easter is at the heart of every Christian. It’s why we call it “Good” Friday when it’s marking the darkest day in the history of the universe.
In some ways, Christmas is even more shocking. The God of all creation had his nappy changed, was breast fed, struggled with toilet training, and probably grew up wondering in his heart of hearts why he always found the smell of manure strangely comforting.
For those just tuning in, I have two kids of my own. Currently Lousiette is 6-nearly-7 and TJ is 4 and a half. Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
It is incredible to think about the whole “having a kid” thing. These two started off as nothing more than a goofy hypothetical notion, then Chris and I MADE them… but they were only about this big:
.
And now they walk and talk and have opinions and dreams and say all kinds of weird and wonderful things both good and bad. In the blink of an eye they’ll be as old as I am now—then older—perhaps with kids of their own, and jobs, and much stronger opinions that I may find utterly horrifying.
How can a tiny dot grow into a whole person?
It’s part of the glorious nonsense of being alive.
Even more bonkers is the idea that God could squash himself down to fit into that tiny dot.
Exhibit C:
.
And even more bonkers is… why?
Jesus spent thirty-three years on Earth, as a man. He was sweaty, and he was sometimes attracted to people he didn’t want to be attracted to, and he ate freshly-baked bread, and he sometimes disagreed with his mum and brothers, and he lived through the death of his mortal dad. Why didn’t he just skip the whole ‘being human’ thing, get crucified, and save the world over a single rather intense long weekend?
It wrecks my mind that he chose to become one of us. He really understands, from our side, what it’s like to be mortal: messy, scary, and smelly.
I love that.
I even made a little YouTube video trying to point out just how bizarre it is that God really did become a slob like one of us.
It’s a mishmash of different messages really. Is it just an excuse to show off old pics of my kids? Is it a brilliant mix of the carnal and the divine? Is it just too much fun to see babies looking wise/annoyed/gassy? You can make up your own mind. There are a couple of other baby pics in there too so go ahead and play “spot the cousin” if you like.)
So. When Jesus Christ, creator and saviour, was born, he probably looked not that much different from my own brown-eyed, dark-haired TJ (although being from the Middle East, Jesus would have had darker skin):
If you want to know what God looks like, that’s pretty similar to one part of it.
Cat VS Tiger
I acquired this giant tiger, which Tim shall receive for Christmas.
When I chucked it on the couch, Zipper PANICKED and FLED FOR HER LIFE.
So I sat down next to the tiger and gently encouraged Zipper to overcome her deep and genuine terror. While I took photos.
Then I put it on the floor for her to stalk, as her courage slowly grew.
It was terrifying for the poor innocent kitten. She crept closer bit by bit.
At last she attacked!
After a lightning strike, she decided to declare the tiger beaten and retreat.
And so our house returned once again to peace.
NaNo Oh No!
Astute viewers may have observed a certain lack of blog posts lately… a dearth of content that started just before November and is now ending just after November.
Not a coincidence.
November (and sometimes July) is National Novel Writing Month, when thousands of writers around the world attempt to write the first 50,000 words of their novel in a month. It’s a glorious, unhealthy, stressful ride.
This year I wrote a game. It’s a magical murder mystery named “Death at the Rectory”. It’ll most likely be available via Choice of Games’s “Hosted Games” label sometime in 2019.
It’s set at a very real, very specific location: the 140 year-old rectory of St John’s Anglican Church in Gundagai. It’s no coincidence that my mother is currently the priest there (until the end of this year). Every time I go there I think how amazing it would be to have a writing retreat there (bags not organise such a thing, though) because of the history of the house and the ridiculously high number of external doors (8, almost all in bedrooms). And incredible views from a deck that wraps around three sides of the house.
The idea of doing a fictional writing retreat there percolated in my brain for a while, and now it’s a fully-written interactive fiction story. With murder. And magic.
(This is the church, which is even older than the rectory—and right next door, too.)
By “fully” written I mean there are over 50,000 words, the quality of which I cannot vouch for.
Zipper is doing just fine, for those who come here exclusively for the cat pics.
Dogs, Goths, Kilts, Pirates, and Octopuses
Last weekend was the weekend of the annual Goulburn Waterworks Steampunk & Victoriana Fair. It’s always an absolute blast. The standard of garb at Goulburn is always amazing: corsets, top hats, pocket watches, waistcoats, bustles, crinolines, and epic boots galore!
I thought I’d do a super quick blog on some of the side effects of steampunk: some of the grand traditions that are steampunk due to pure coolness factor rather than any rational connections.
Goths of course.
Okay, that connection is obvious. Lace parasols and corsets for both men and women? Yes please! One of the many definitions of steampunk is that it’s what happened when goths discovered brown.
(I’m sorry I didn’t turn that pic around the right way. I’m VERY tired. Not only was the Goulburn Steampunk Fair two days long this year—yay!—but I also just completed a 3-day speed game-writing jam. Over the same weekend!)
I believe I mentioned dogs. There’s a dog in my Iron Lights trailer (from the Goulburn Fair last year, in fact*) and there were loads of dogs (many in costume) this year too.
Kilts and military attire are both well represented at such events (this year there were real cannons firing across the water, too!)
So if you like a man in uniform and/or admiring a man’s legs (or the unpredictable thrills of seeing men in kilts on a very windy day) then you should hang out with steampunks.
Especially if you like them sideways.
Ditto pirates and octopuses.
And reimagined superheroes/princesses. I saw a lot of amazing steampunk Iron Men a few years ago. Lately lots of steampunk Wonder Women, and some really excellent steampunk Belles (especially at Supanova events).
My kids dressed as a unicorn rainbow princess (who then had her face painted as a kitten) and Batman (painted as a scary monster). As you can perhaps tell, my children are at the age when they’re very strong on external expressions of gender identity.
Steampunks like cats too. Because steampunks are cool. So here’s a pic of Zipper I took today. May it please you.
GUI ChoiceScript?
I just found out that various people are working on making ChoiceScript easier to learn and use.
I… probably won’t use these tools because I’ve grown comfortable with using CS directly and don’t want to mess with that (yes, I am old and crotchety. Shut up).
Here‘s the link to much usefulness!
Here’s Zipper, getting better at venturing outside (but still terrified by birds).
IRON LIGHTS review
My fellow Odyssey Books author, Carmel Bendon, reviewed IRON LIGHTS for me on Goodreads. Here’s what she said:
Iron Lights is the third book in Felicity Banks’ The Antipodean Queen trilogy and the next in the adventures of the series’ heroine, Emmeline Muchamore. Iron Lights, however, stands alone as a cohesive read and there is sufficient reference to key elements of the earlier works – mainly in terms of characters common to all three books – to orientate readers who have not read the first two books.
Emmeline is a very appealing lead character, full of energy, optimism and conviction, and totally human in her devotion to her sweetheart, Matilda Newry, and an array of disparate and revolutionary friends, and all this powered by her amazing steam-fired heart of brass. When Emmeline is called into action by the quicksilver-generated vision of the impending fiery and brutal destruction of Melbourne and its inhabitants by an invading [mechanised] army, she responds with courage and determination, gathering her own extraordinary army of humans and machines.
Banks’ imagination has filled the story with mechanical wonders – activated metals with magical qualities and inventions that extend far beyond the usual machines to include such marvels as (deadly) Australian spiders with activated metal inserts that enable them to carry out their mistress’s bidding.
Banks’ evocation, and then subversion and manipulation, of small details of Australian colonial history is clever and got me checking (historical) names and details on more than one occasion. The story’s action is fast-paced & drives the plot forward with a precision akin to the machinery it embraces. At times the pace was almost too fast and I found it hard to keep up with Emmeline’s quickly-made plans and their even quicker implementation that saw her dashing across (and above) grand exhibitions and battlefields, and building and overseeing an extraordinary laboratory in an even more remarkable fortress but, in some ways, the rush added to the fun. In all, Iron Lights is well-written, imaginative, energetic, and a very enjoyable read.
Zip Zip
The kids are having a sleepover tonight, so the house is unusually quiet.
Zipper is very concerned. She still follows us if we go to the bathroom, so the notion of spending a whole night without two members of her litter is Just Wrong.
Here is a nice pic of her, and a not-that-nice pic of my kids. PRIORITIES!
In other news, I’ve cut down my chocolate intake—I’ve regained most of the weight I lost earlier this year, so it must be done—and as a result I believe all life is pain, all humans are hateful, and every breath I take is an imposition on both myself and the universe.
This is why I don’t often attempt to lose weight.
In other other news, I am reading the first Harry Potter book aloud to Louisette. It’s an extraordinary experience. My own writing has been going very poorly lately, and it helps to be reminded of what good fiction feels like from the other side.
99 cents
IRON LIGHTS is on Amazon now, which probably means it’s almost everywhere! So to celebrate, Book 1: HEART OF BRASS is having a 99c promo.
I’m posting it here for those of you on an RSS feed.
https://www.amazon.com.au/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=felicity+banks
And here’s Zipper, but sideways.
More Important Matters
So IRON LIGHTS is out (through my store and Dymocks Belconnen ONLY at the moment—it’ll be available everywhere in October, including digitally), MURDER IN THE MAIL is exhibiting at The Front cafe gallery… and all you really want to know is, “HOW IS THE KITTEN THO?”
She is good.
As you can see, she prefers her collar half untied (and will unhook it every time I try to neaten it) but it doesn’t freak her out any more. I think she enjoys chewing on it when the rest of us aren’t sufficiently entertaining.
Today is day 15 of her life with us. It feels much longer.
Chris and I quite often wake at 6am or so to hear, “Noooo, nooo, Zipper, nooo, ouch!” in the morning as the kids wake up before us and don’t always remember our new golden rule (“when Zipper is playful on the couch, you go on the floor, and when Zipper is playful on the floor you go on the couch”) but I don’t think she’s actually drawn blood on the kids yet. Of course Chris and I have some (very minor) scratches because we do things like pick her up.
I’ve begun altering her food from the RSPCA’s preferred brand to a more ordinary kitten-friendly food. The change disturbed her yesterday but she’s definitely eating it so that should be fine.
My sister has two young daughters (6 and 7.5) who visited us yesterday to meet Zipper and have a play. They’re not nearly as familiar with cats as my two, but Zipper was clearly quite interested in them (despite her obvious nerves) and if they ever sat down for more than ten seconds I bet she’d hop on their lap/s.
It’s very exciting having a cat that’s NOT a long-haired type, because she can actually sit on the couch without leaving it covered in fur. This is a new and wondrous thing—and she certainly looks good on green.
She still sleeps a lot, usually sitting on one of our dining chairs (hidden by the tablecloth) or in a lap, or at/over my feet. She still follows me to the bathroom and calmly waits for me before following me back into the living room.
It’s rare for her to meow these days, so hopefully she’ll just grow out of it. But keep the habit of saying, “Prrrm?” by way of greeting or query.
She still plays a lot, and has begun enjoying different toys—the balls we bought for her, crumpled paper, my doona, Louisette’s soft toys. She still doesn’t really ‘get’ the whole treat thing (she tends to sniff at a treat, bat it around a bit, and then walk off).
And she’s still utterly perfect.
Felicity Banks 