Donna Freedman

Practice stealthy acts of kindness.

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At this time of year everyone wakes up to the fact that need exists in the United States. Everywhere you look are food drives, gift drives, coat drives.

Here’s a news flash: Need exists all year long, not just in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong: I love it when people do nice things. I just wish it weren’t so holiday-specific. Pardon my grinchiness, but I think some of these once-a-year volunteers aren’t doing it for the homeless, the seniors or the kids. They’re doing it to make themselves feel good.

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Blog roundup: Baby, it’s cold outside edition.

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Earlier this week I was out walking when the temperature was about 5 degrees. My body felt warm enough but boy, did my face sting. Apparently my blood has gotten thin after six years of living in Seattle, aka “the tropics.”

While I was living in Anchorage, the features reporters had to collaborate on an annual “Christmas lights” story. Acting on tips from readers, we fanned out across the city in search of the best-decorated homes in the city.

“Best” sometimes meant elegant and tasteful. Most of the time it meant “so bright you could get a tan while standing nearby.”

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We wish you a debt-free Christmas.

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An old friend of mine – call him “Frugalbert Humperdinck” – once riffed on the song “Lonely is a man without love.” Unfamiliar with that late 1960s hit? Sit patiently through this video of Engelbert Humperdinck singing the first verse, in order to get to the chorus that’s about to be parodied:

Christmas bills are scare-ful,

 

But one can be careful.

 

Lovely is a man without loans.

 

Celebrate the season,

 

Keeping things in reason.

 

Lovely is a man without loans.

 

Go in debt, you peasants,

 

Buying toddlers presents.

 

Lovely is a man without loans.

 

Why impugn your credit

 

When they’ll soon forget it?

 

Lovely is a man without loans.

 

(Half-step up for the big finale)

 

Ere to shops I dart off,

 

First I pay the card off.

 

Lovely is a man without loans.

 

I’ll assuage my cravings

 

With January savings.

 

Lovely is a maaaan without loans.

 

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Live from Alaska: Frozen pipes, bachelors on credit and suggestive pizza.

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Scenes from our trip to the Talkeetna Bachelors Auction and Wilderness Woman Competition:

We arrived late Friday afternoon, driving directly into a blizzard. But after watching the Parade of Lights we knew we’d be able to get back out of town on Sunday: Among the vehicles in the parade were eight snowplows.

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Holiday countdown: You’re probably already running late.

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The retail industry treats Christmas as one big countdown. This year has been the worst yet: Black Friday seems to have lasted the entire month of November.

But right after Thanksgiving the real fun began: “Only 26 more shopping days until Christmas.”

I think it’s because as a nation, we love to be nagged. The phone company reminds us to call home on Mother’s Day. Florists fuss at you to buy flowers for Secretary’s Day. Jewelers warn men to buy bigger and better diamonds for each year’s anniversary.

Nagging works, too: The phone system is overwhelmed on the second Sunday in May. Administrative assistants smile as they load up the vases (even if they’re inwardly wishing they’d gotten gift cards, or raises). And wives all over America decide to hang in there for another year because the big lug actually remembered.

But this is not a cynical post about the commercialization of sentiment. Not this time, anyway. It’s about why “(however many) more days until Christmas” is too vague to be of any use.

That’s because it’s not a warning — it’s a snooze alarm.

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Could your family survive on one salary?

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Some couples choose to go to one income: to have a baby, to go back to school, to start a business. For others the change is involuntary and terrifying: layoff, illness, a business going under.

Those who seek change have the option of preparing for it. Those who have change thrust upon them can only scramble to minimize the damage.

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Snow days.

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Yesterday it snowed in Seattle. This happens rarely enough that folks panic when the first flake hits the ground. Buses run less often. The stores sell out of milk and ice melt. Driving becomes an adventure on Seattle’s famously sloping roadways. (I swear it really is possible to walk through the snow uphill both ways.)

On Saturday I’m heading up to Anchorage, Alaska for a month in the frozen north. Which today happens to be the glazed-over north: Freezing rain on top of snow turned streets into skating rinks and hilly streets into luge runs.

The thought made me cringe, which in turn made me realize I’ve become a total weenie after nine years of Lower 48 living.

When I moved from Alaska to Chicago in 2001, I actually missed winter. Ice and all.

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