{"id":563,"date":"2009-12-22T15:51:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T15:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/2009\/12\/22\/my-holiday-update\/"},"modified":"2025-01-05T02:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T02:44:17","slug":"my-holiday-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/2009\/12\/22\/my-holiday-update\/","title":{"rendered":"My Holiday Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_5AEIE35V014\/SzDv7KbkFzI\/AAAAAAAAABg\/7XhUY_t1s2g\/s1600-h\/fsm_small_02.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_5AEIE35V014\/SzDv7KbkFzI\/AAAAAAAAABg\/7XhUY_t1s2g\/s320\/fsm_small_02.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418094151417993010\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>At left: our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.venganza.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Flying Spaghetti Monster<\/a> tree topper. It didn&#8217;t take long to make (and it shows!). It&#8217;s made with off-white yarn (for the noodly appendages), brown yarn (for the meatballs), scrap paper (for the eyes), tape (holding the scrap paper together) and Elmer&#8217;s glue (holding everything together).<\/p>\n<p>Yes, all that time in Vacation Bible School making crafts finally paid off.<\/p>\n<p>Stefan and Jayne wish you Happy Holidays! Ramen!.<\/p>\n<p><span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">*   *   *<\/span><\/span><br \/>My dear friend Anne is flying up from San Francisco to spend Christmas with us. So excited!<\/p>\n<p><span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">*   *   *<\/span><\/span><br \/>Stefan said that, among the many new Christmas decorations that had been inflated on a neighbor&#8217;s yard was a &#8220;Big Evil Christmas Bunny.&#8221; We went to have a look. It was The Grinch. I don&#8217;t think I did a good job of explaining who The Grinch is. I hope it comes on TV soon.<\/p>\n<p><span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">*   *   *<\/span><\/span><br \/>When someone says &#8220;Happy Holidays&#8221;, they are wishing you &#8220;Happy Holy Days,&#8221; acknowledging the many HOLY DAYS celebrated by our wonderfully diverse country, *not* trying to deny your specific religion. So: Happy HOLIDAYS: Happy Saturnalia, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice, Happy Christmas, Happy Fe<span>stivus, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Day of Ashura, Happy Sunday, HAPPY HOUR (the last is <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">my<\/span> favorite).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">*   *   *<\/span><br \/>If I am in your liquor store and ask you for your selection of Kentucky Bourbon, and you include in your list Jack Daniels, I have every right to be condescending, as you have just insulted my culture *and* my taste.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">*   *   *<br \/><\/span><\/span><span>I want a pith helmet.<br \/><\/span><span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">*   *   *<\/span><\/span><br \/><span>I wish someone would subtitle the movie <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Fidder on the Roof<\/span> in Dari and Pashto and show it in Afghanistan. Yes, I know it&#8217;s about Jews in Russia, and Afghanistan is a Muslim country, but the reality is that SO MUCH of it is THE SAME:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> First of all: it&#8217;s a musical. Afghans LOVE musicals. Bollywood is huge in Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li> Secondly, the big men&#8217;s dance number in the bar. If that&#8217;s not an Afghanistan moment, I don&#8217;t know what is.<\/li>\n<li> Thirdly, the themes of the movie &#8212; tradition in a time of change, preserving your family and honor, toleration without losing your values &#8212; they all HUGELY resonate in Afghan culture<\/li>\n<li>Fourthly, religion permeates the lives of the main family, another thing that resonates hugely with Afghans<\/li>\n<li> Fifthly, the women are all covered at all times. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Come on &#8212; the film was a hit in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Japan<\/span> where its themes struck a chord on a profound level with the locals. I&#8217;m telling you, this would be bigger in Afghanistan than <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> (and that movie is HUGE in Afghanistan). And would bridge a lot of gaps in understanding the world outside of Afghanistan. Ofcourse, any kisses would have to be edited out (are there any kisses?).<\/p>\n<p>So, when I win the lottery, you now know one of the things I&#8217;m going to do&#8230;<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At left: our Flying Spaghetti Monster tree topper. It didn&#8217;t take long to make (and it shows!). It&#8217;s made with off-white yarn (for the noodly appendages), brown yarn (for the meatballs), scrap paper (for the eyes), tape (holding the scrap paper together) and Elmer&#8217;s glue (holding everything together). Yes, all that time in Vacation Bible [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pnw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotebroad.com\/blawg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}