So this is Christmas

I always chuckle up when the newspeople to that annual interview with people: "Has consumerism caused us to lose the true meaning of Christmas?" I sure hope to hell it has. In fact I doubt if anyone ever really understood the true meaning of christmas. Christmas like all those other made up holidays is a conglomerate of meanings, sure it has something to do with the birth of jc but that is only part of the meaning and through the generations new meanings have been thatched on to it, and the by-product is what we have today. Sure it is in many regards a celebration of our consumer culture, but I have never felt obligated to go out and buy something for the sake of Christmas our out a sense of duty to this person or that.
I like the idea of presents, the giving more so than the receiving. I don't like receiving things, because they are usually things that I neither need or want, which is why people shouldn't buy gifts just to give them. I think that a well though of gift is a wonderful thing and it shows the degree to which you know someone. For example I realized shopping for my aunt and uncle how very little I know them. But for the little one I bought this remote control car, and he was very happy with it, and that in turn made me happy. I then spend the next three or so hours sitting on the floor assembling the rain set he got from my aunt and uncle.
I generally like to give books because I think once you are able to give someone a book they will enjoy it shows that you know them to a certain degree, especially when it is a book they had no heard of. Of course there are times you can get it very wrong, for example giving my sister the feminist mystic and gravity's rainbow may have been a little misguided, but at least she liked diary of a schizophrenic girl (good knows for what reason). I got my cousin the call of the wild of the wild so that i can teach him a little english to supplement what he isn't learning in school. He likes dogs, so wolves seems like a natural extension of it. It also isn't as sad as old yeller and where the red fern grows. We'll see how that goes. Kids these days I swear all they ever do is play video games there is no time to read anymore, pffft.

I have been watching romanian films lately and I am utterly disappointed I have not seen them before. Some of them are wonderful gems (i don't know why film people use that word). More and more films are being made in romania because of tax incentives, well romania and boston. but it seems that very few of the romanian films made in romania are a hot in romania, the much more prefer hollywood and bollywood films. But these films are simply great films, as great as any other foreign films and it really is a shame that they get lost in the mix. Romania has never been ever been a sexy place. There seem to be two things people know about romania, maybe three. That we had a dictator, Ceaucescu a gymnast Comaneci and we have a lot of orphans. Romania has no real military history and this is an immense draw back, hell the Swiss have more of a militaristic history, and they have Calvin... and chocolate. But it is utterly amazing how little separates romania and for that matter most post soviet countries from countries with more of a history. There is probably a matter of immigration, most of Romania's emigration has been either unsavory individuals or the really bright people that are stuck in front of computers. More about Romania when I get to it.