Nepotism in Action

My parents have been self-employed in the printing and publishing business (The Insite Group) since before I was born, which has meant various things to my family and me over the years. It has its perks, like free printing on anything from birthday invitations to science fair displays, advertising trade accounts with local businesses and restaurants, and the occasional free copy of Adobe Creative Suite. It also means being recruited to help with bulk mailings, sorting archives in the filthy attic, and having a mom who doesn't have time to cook dinner during magazine deadline week. In our photogenic childhoods, my siblings and I would crop up with relative frequency on the cover of Insite. Amusing family stories became fair game for mom's PubDesk column, and even occasionally for the cover story, like the week my family was Amish (in retrospect, I'm not sure why I agreed to that). I've been proofreading and editing magazine stories since high school, but this month is the first time I've gotten to try my hand at writing something of my own (and, even more miraculously, getting paid for it). It's also the first time I've been on the cover since I was about nine. I guess being a college student has its perks too.

Check out this month's issue of Insite - I'm on page 39.

Surprise

I turned 18 on Tuesday, and was planning on having a pretty average day - which I was, until my mom walked through my dorm room door. I have never been so surprised in my entire life. Now you might be thinking "How horrible!" - after all, isn't this the scenario college students have nightmares about? I won't pretend it's not a little awkward, having my mom on campus, and it definitely makes me a little self-conscious, but I also won't pretend I don't think it's totally worth it. Those studies that have gotten a lot of attention lately about how college students are more dependent than ever on our parents make me a little angry. There is nothing wrong with having a functional relationship with your parents and missing them when you're away from home. That does not mean I am dependent on them. Once you're capable of living your life independent of your parents, I think you're allowed the luxury of missing them and being happy to see them. Besides, my mom is happy to now be able to envision what I do with my time up here. Good thing I have nothing to hide - sometimes it pays to be a goody two shoes...

Far From Home

"Oh, I guess nobody told you - I'm in the hospital." That definitely tops the list of words I don't want to hear when I call my dad to thank him for some photos he sent me. He has a staph infection on his face, but he's on IV antibiotics and should be fine. It just made the fact that I'm not at home, that things can happen without my knowledge, a little more real. No matter how often I talk to my family (which is quite often), I'm not exactly in the loop anymore. And I won't ever be again, really, excepting three or four summers. It's an odd mental adjustment to make.

Soul Food

What is it about cooking that makes it such a bonding experience? I have noticed this many times in my life, but particularly strongly over the weekend as I was helping my mom, aunt, and grandmommy prepare a large family meal. It seems to me that the bonding aspect is largely feminine - while my dad loves to cook, he prefers to do it alone, rather than explaining exactly what he needs done to someone else. (To be fair, my uncle did teach me how to cook asparagus this weekend.) Whenever I cook with my female relatives, on the other hand, it's a leisurely process, with lots of conversation and nibbling. Boring, repetitive tasks like washing vegetables, which I would ordinarily complain about, become social activities. I suppose this could all be biological - prehistoric origins as hunter-gatherers, tight-knit female subculture, etc. But while I've seen it the most with other females, it happens in mixed company too (obviously I can't speak for all-male groups...maybe if it involves grills and gratuitious amounts of lighter fluid?). My senior class's school auction project was to create a college-student-worthy cookbook, and we all got together to cook our recipes. Some of them were quite tasty, and it was great fun to cram everyone into a moderately-sized kitchen and cook up a storm. Usually if you had put all of us in such a small space for an extended period of time there would have been more than a few unkind words exchanged, given the clashing personalities of some of our class members, but there was remarkable equanimity, even camaraderie, since we were all working on a common project. Does the fact that that common project was cooking have anything to do with it? Who knows...But also consider that cooking together is considered to be a very romantic date. Why? My guess is that cooking is usually something one does in an intimate setting (i.e. at home), so when you cook with other people you are sharing that intimacy with them. Other explanations? Please share!

Ghost of Christmas Past

This year, I almost missed Christmas. I've felt the Christmas spirit slipping away from me the past few years - the anticipation of Christmas morning, the expectancy all through the month of December, the "specialness" of everything having to do with Christmas. In response, I've tried harder every year to do Christmasy things, to recapture the spirit of the season. Singing carols, wrapping presents, playing our collection of Christmas CDs nonstop since I've been home - nothing worked. Christmas snuck up on me. I'd blame it on the lack of snow, but as a Texan I should be used to that.

I think part of it is the busyness of my family. We don't have time for the traditional Advent activities we've always done. In past years, my parents have written messages containing family activities, from going to look at Christmas lights to sharing favorite Christmas memories, and slipped them in each pocket of our Advent calendar. The past few years we forgot a few days, but this year we didn't bother at all. The first two weeks I wasn't home, and there was just too much going on at work and school for everyone else. I think another part of it is that my brother and sister have finally caught on to the myth of Santa Claus. That means no more letters to the North Pole, no more cookies and milk on Christmas Eve. This year, our Christmas Eve conversation went like this: "Is a cubic foot of lead heavier than a cubic foot of gold? My periodic table doesn't say." "I don't know. Hallie, will you Google it?" And our traditional reading of "The Night Before Christmas" was punctuated with serious debates of the definition of sugarplum and the doubtful attribution of the poem. My family may have gotten too intellectual for its own good.

Still, no matter how busy or weird my family is, that can't be the only reason. Part of it must simply be about growing up. I can now happily go to bed early on Christmas Eve, sleep soundly, and complain about being dragged from my bed by my younger siblings to see the stockings. Gone are the days when I awoke anxiously every hour to check the clock and debate exactly how early I could awaken my parents. Gone also is the hushed, glowing anticipation of the night before Christmas - I spent it IMing friends and idly surfing the internet. Christmas morning came and went; presents were opened, lunch was eaten, and we all settled down with our books or laptops to while away the day. And then it was over. But while the magic seems to be mostly gone, a different feeling has replaced it. I now understand why my mom says family is the most important thing to her at Christmas. More than the presents, which I could take or leave (as a college student I don't have room for more stuff anyway), and even my mom's amazing Christmas dinner, cheesy as it sounds, I was just happy to be home and surrounded by my family. Is this new, quieter, more adult Christmas spirit better than the butterflies-in-the-stomach, sparkling Christmas spirit of the years before? I wish I could have both, but I guess I can settle for growing up.

Alternative Giving

For Christmas, my three little cousins are getting chickens. My aunt and uncle are getting a heifer. Don't worry - they fit easily under the tree. This year, my family shopped at our church's alternative gift market, a project of Alternative Gifts International. The church raised about $4000 for various charities represented at the market - not bad for the first year, and the woman who organized it all hopes to make it a Christmas tradition. We purchased livestock through Heifer International, an organization that seeks to end hunger by providing families with sustainable sources of food and income rather than short-term relief. Those chickens and that cow will help families support themselves and hopefully others around them as their animals reproduce.

When my mom told me about the alternative gift market, it seemed like one of the best ideas I've ever heard. It's a new and better answer to the question "what do you get the person who has everything?" - give them the gift of giving. After all, if they already have everything, it's not as though they're going to appreciate a material gift. They just may think an attractive gift card telling them they've provided clean water for a village in Africa, or a medical kit for a doctor in Cambodia, is the best Christmas present ever. And if they don't like it...well, better to give them an unappreciated gift that does some good for the world than one that languishes on the top shelf of their closet forever.

You can order alternative gifts online and either have a gift card for any occasion included or have it mailed to the person in whose honor you're making the gift. Or you can buy yourself a present anytime - nothing feels better than making a difference.