Christmas then and Christmas now (Graded)

Bryson's comparison of celebrating Christmas in England vs. America raised my thoughts about how Christmas celebrations have changed in my family over the years. Although the difference is not culturally divided, as it is in Bryson's essay, it is quite different now from when I was a child. We now celebrate Christmas with three times as many people, we don't receive as many presents as we used to, and our Christmas Eve tradition has drastically changed.

When I was a child, our Christmas gathering involved only my parents, my six siblings, and sometimes my maternal grandmother. Now, all of us are grown and have our own families and when we get together for Christmas, there are usually no less than 23 of us. One year, we celebrated Christmas at my sister's house in Buffalo, MN. There was an ice storm on the night of our gathering and all of us ended up stranded at her house. There were 28 of us that spent the night. Luckily, she has a huge 5 bedroom house so everyone mangaged to find a place to sleep. The kids all slept on the floor and the adults got the bedrooms and the couches. I know that my sister and her husband were very glad to see that the storm had passed next morning so all of us could leave.

I know that the real meaning of Christmas is not about what you receive as gifts; however, I can't help but remember that as a child, presents were always in abundance at Christmastime. Each of us 7 children would have at least 5 or 6 presents, from my parents, under the tree. I can remember digging under the tree and organizing all the presents so that each of us had all of our presents in one spot. Now, we are lucky if we get one present each. My parents now have many grandchildren to buy presents for, so it would be too costly for them to lavish us with many presents as we used to get.

When I was young, our Christmas Eve tradition was the same every year. Us kids would torment my mother all day long by begging her to let us open up one present. To which she always replied, "not until after church!". Eventually, we would eat dinner and then either attend the 5:30 Mass or Midnight Mass (which was usually held at 10:00 p.m.) When we got home from church, it was time to open presents! There was such an excitement and happiness in all of us. We always started with the youngest, which was me! I opened all of my presents first, then my brother Chris, who was second to the youngest, then Brian, who was 3rd to the youngest, and so on. After everyone was done, my parents would let us stay up as long as we wanted to play with and admire our new presents. Nowdays, we rarely get together on Christmas Eve. It's usually sometime in December or January, when every one can manage to get together. Opening presents is now a long, drawn out process. Everyone opens their presents one at a time and with 28+ people, that takes a very long time! Also, we don't attend the Christmas Eve Service together anymore. My siblings attend Christmas services with their own families and my parents usually go alone.

A lot has changed over the years. I often day dream around Christmastime and think about how it used to be. The excitement and anticipation that I felt was so much more intense back then. Although I like celebrating Christmas with all of my extended family members, I miss the intimacy of having just my siblings and my parents together. I now hope to start my own traditions with my kids, so they can have the same opportunity to feel the way I did as a child.

Last Vacation

For my last vacation we had to choose between two possible destinations. One choice was to go to San Antonio, Texas and the other choice was to go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was December so in Texas it was really great weather and Wisconsin was cold and snowy. I have family in both states too. So basically what it came down to was whether we wanted warm sunny weather or cold snowy weather. Well of course we chose to go to Texas. Nothing beats the warm sunny weather in the middle of December. I was so happy we chose to go down to Texas. The weather was great and I got to break out my summer clother early!

Sunmart vs Cashwise

When shopping at the supermarket, I am always buying the same items. Chips, salsa, salad, the list goes on and on. When shopping at Cashwise for the first time last week I felt very disoriented when I entered the store. It was hard, and confusing to navigate myself through the store. Many of their prices such as their salsa chips were much more than Sunmart, so instead of buying two bags of chips for $4.00 I bought one for $3.95. The next item on list was salad, usually I buy two bags, one iceberg and the other spinach. As I approached the salad section I noticed that there were a few red signs here and there, marking down various salads that were about to pass their due date. I looked for my standard iceberg salad, and could not find it. When I asked a salesperson for help they said they were all out for the day, but they should get some in tomorrow. "Great" I thought, "that doesn't help me today though!" So already discouraged about my shopping adventure I moved on to the next item on my list, banannas. Cashwise seemed to have a ripe stock of banannas, although they were two times the price of Sunmarts. Instead of being $1.49/pound they were $2.59/pound. I threw my hands up in the air and vowed never to go back to Cashwise, walked somberly to my car and drove to Sunmart. I found everything I needed, at reasonable prices, and announced to my family that if anyone shopped at Cashwise, they were on my list.

Vacation Spots (Graded)

Last August, my cousin whom just got engaged, wanted a destination wedding. And as one of her bridesmaids and close friends she asked me for some help. We sat down and decided between Florida and Jamaica for her wedding spot. They both had hot temperatures at the time of the date and they both had really nice resorts. When we were looking and comparing we had pros and cons about both places.
Jamaica was an all inclusive resort, were the Florida's resort wasn't. So we knew it was going to be expensive. Jamaica's wedding package was also way cheaper then it was in Florida. But on the other hand you didn't need to get a passport to go to Florida. And it was going to be four to six months before we got our passports. Florida is also not a poor state or country like Jamaica is. When it was all said and done the bride and groom, with my help, decided to get married in Jamaica. Although a poor country and the hassle of getting passports, it was all around the cheaper way to go. When you have 30+ people attending your destination wedding you try to save people money!
I have visited Florida before and just flying into Jamaica was the coolest site I have ever seen! Jamaica is so small that we could see the whole country from inside the plane. My cousins’ wedding was so beautiful. It wouldn't have been the same if she were to get married in Florida. Florida was very fun but going to Jamaica was a way better experience then Florida was. Hands down I would go to Jamaica over Florida any day!

Vacation Spots (Graded)

Last year when I lived in Oregon, my roomate and I decided that we wanted to take a trip somewhere. So we started to list our choices and what we really wanted in a trip. We both decided that we want somewhere close within about 10 hours. So from Oregon, we looked north and south and found our two possible destinations. Seattle in Washington and San Francisco in California. Then we listed the pros and cons of each destination.
In Seattle we did not know anyone that lived there and would be touring the city or doing things by ourselves. We also relaized that Seattle has a reputation for raining alot and did not want to get stuck in a bunch of bad weather. But Seattle has a very good music scene which is one thing we wanted to do, go to some concerts. The scenery in Seattle seemed a little better than SF and that is one attribute that makes a difference in where i pick to go.
Is San Fran, we knew about 10 different people that we could hang out with, that could show us around the city and let us stay at their places without buying a hotel. Which is a big, big plus. The one thing we didn't like about SF is how expensive everything was going to be. We had heard it is very expensive to eat and drink there. Both of us had also never been to CA so we decided to go with San Fran and it was a definite good time.
I think the biggest thing for us was knowing somone that could save us money and show us all the cool things around the city. And for not picking Seattle it was the weather. We didn't want to spend vacation under umbrella's the whole time. The trip to San Fran ended up being a really good time and such a good time that i'm headed back there in the end of may!!

Two Possible Destinations For My Last Vacation

If I were to choose two possible destinations for my last vacation I would pick Hawaii or Italy. My aunt recently moved to Hawaii because she joined the Army and that is where her base is at. I would love to go out there for a week and visit her. I would love the hot weather and beaches. Since I would be staying with my aunt, I would save so much money because I wouldn't have to stay at a hotel, rent a car, etc. She would take me to the different cities not too far from where she is in Honolulu. I would be able to see a lot more than I would have if I stayed at a resort for a week. I think my vacation to Hawaii would be more fun than going to Italy just because I would have my aunt as my tour guide. I would love to see where she lives her life down there. It would be so different than how my life is here in Minnesota. If I were to go to Italy, of course there would be plenty of sites to see. My great grandmother came over to the United States from Italy before she had kids and got married. I think it would be a life changing experience if I were to vacation in Italy, where my ancestors came from! When it comes down to it, I would choose to go to Hawaii because I would save a lot more money than if I were to go to Italy. And let's face it, what college student has that much money to go to Italy or anywhere overseas? Not I!!

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Comparing items can definitely save you money. When renting movies, there are two basic options. You can order online, or you can order from a store. I like renting from a physical store because you can just drive over and see what they have. I find it easier to find when I can see a shelf full of movies as opposed to lists of movie names. I also like at the movie store the deal of five movies for five nights for five dollars. Online if you were to rent a movie from say iTunes, it would cost $3.99 and once you have watched it once, you only have 24 hours to watch it as many times as you want before the movie expires. I really like the idea of how easy it is to get on internet and order a movie and have it in only a few minutes, but I am just a poor college student, so I prefer to stick to the old fashioned movie store. I could either drive a few blocks to a movie store, or spend a few extra dollars to have the movie now. There are different pros and cons of each, but overall I believe it comes down to how much it costs.

new years resolution

last year i made a resalution to not drink as much pop. I can sleep alot better now with out caffeine and i have lost about ten pounds from just not drinking as much pop.

New Year's Resolution

My new year's resolution about 7 years ago was not to let anger eat away at me. I had some issues that were really bothering me prior to this to the extent that I was barely able to get out of bed in the mornings. Normally I am a pretty happy and optimistic person, but things were changing and I wasn't feeling that way anymore. I pinpointed these changes to how I handled anger and difficult situations (I held it all inside). These things were keeping me from eating and from sleeping at night, so I knew I had to do something. I worked with a counselor for a little while to find the sources of my anger and to learn ways to constructively deal with it. When it came time for a new year's resolution, I knew that not letting anger get to me the way it did before would be a resolution that I could keep. I still get mad at things that happen at work, etc. but now I deal with it head on and I am done with it. To this day, my resolution still holds and I am a better person because of it.

Trice essay

I work two jobs and they are both customer service related. I somewhat agree with her, but she also needs to realize what a lot of customer service people have to deal with. You would not believe how some people act/treat other people when they are out in public and sometimes the store clerk or server takes their aggressions out on the wrong person.
example 1: I was working the drive through at Dairy Queen on a hot summer day and everyone decided they needed ice cream. There was this certain customer that made me so angry. She pulls up to the drive thru window and has no idea what she wants 5 minutes later she decides but in the meantime there is a buildup of 20 cars behind her waiting for her to order. Then she pulls up to the window to pay and can not find her money so i preceed to wait another 5 minutes for her to find $1.37 for her small twist cone.
example 2: It is Valentines day and everyone has to go out to eat at the restaruant that i work at. I am very busy and there is this one table that is being so needy it is really making me mad. They have their food, so i am checking back to make sure everything is ok, and they ask for some ranch, when i return with it, they need more water, so i go get it, and come back and now they want more ketchup and just did not understand that they were not the only people i had to help that night. After the tenth time of going back to their table i really just want to say no and walk away.
example 3: I am working at the dry cleaners and it is Christmas time, which is pretty busy because everyone brings out thier nicest clothes that are dry clean only. This particular customer whom i have never seen before brings in quite a few items and i check them all over to mark any damages down which is routine so we don't get blamed for damages we did not cause. Well when she comes back to pick up her items there is a burn on one of them which i knew about because i recorded it as being burned before she dropped it off. She insisted that i did it and said a few choice words to me and i tried my hardest to bite my tongue because i would probably get fired if i said the words to her i wanted to say.

New Year's Resolution

In 2006 my New Year's resolution was to stop eating out so much and start eating at home. Before making the New Year's resolution I would eat out at a fast food restaurant at least 3 days a week . Now I eat at a fast food restaurant once or twice a month. Keeping that resolution has changed my life. I have lost weight which is a major plus of the resolution. Not eating out so much has allowed me to have more quality time with my family while eating at home. I have also saved a lot of money by not going out to eat so much. It was the best desicion I have ever made for myself. Plus, who knew homemade food could taste so much better than fast food.

New Years Resoltion

In 2005 I made the New Year's resolution to be more thoughtful. I know this sounds very vague but it really came about because of my ex-girlfriend. She was all ways saying how I never thought things through. I decieded to make a concious effort to think about my actions. I know it might sound strange to think about thinking more. However, I really feel that it changed my life.
The first example of how it changed my life is with my relationship with her. As I have pointed out we are no longer dating but we are still very close friends. Something that I do not think would have been possible unless I would have made a change. Another good example is my decision to go to school again this semester. For a while I was seriously considering not going back this semester but after much thought I decided that going to school is something that I need to do if I want to better my life. However, the best example of how this resolution changed my life is with the people I surround myself with. Before I never really considered what could happen to me by just hanging out with the wrong type of people. Now I am much more selective with who I hang out with instead of surrounding myself with people that will get me into trouble.

Unit 2 blog

Read the “Pay Attention to the World Around You” paragraphs on pg 36 of The Student Writer. As the week passes, jot down these events, controversies, lessons, conversations, "aha moments" and post them to your blog. Tell us about where you got the ideas. Which do you find most intriguing/least intriguing and why?

Healthier lifestyles: newspaper
Pros and cons of owning your own business: small business management class
Tax returns: newspaper
Housing market: news
Crime in big cities: conversation
Bomb threats: conversation

I find the healthier lifestyles topic that I read about in the newspaper most intriguing because I think that being over weight is a big issue in America and a lot of Americans do not find it a problem. Being overweight causes many health problems that many people do not realize. Such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, cancer, clogged arteries etc. The topic that I find least intriguing is probably the crime in big cities because that is something that has always be a problem and I do not think that it is something that is going to change anytime soon. It is a big issue but there would have to be some major changes in the world for that to occur.