What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Improved my Japanese; went to a French-speaking country; went to the Deep South; volunteered to be a Lay Eucharistic Visitor (but wasn't needed to do it).

Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I made any resolutions last year. My resolution ( Read more... )

Merry Christmas!

Since I'm in a somewhat pensive and thoughtful mood I'll link to this Umberto Eco essay about Christmas (it's unfortunate that the essay is in a right-wing British rag like the Telegraph, especially considering that Eco is firmly in the mainline [culturally-]Christian-Socialist centre-left of Italian politics himself). I'm having A ( Read more... )

In honour of All Hallow's Eve, I'm inviting trick-or-treaters to my 'door.' Comment "trick-or-treat" to this post and...well, you know the drill. Treats can be anything that strikes my fancy (pics of fave actors or pairings, one sentence fics, graphics, a few words why I'm glad to have you on my flist, etc. etc.). The more "houses" to visit the ( Read more... )

Are there any who are devout lovers of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due ( Read more... )

So, St Valentine's Day has come round again, and in the spirit of Christian martyrdom I'd like to take a moment to reflect on all of the people who were persecuted and killed who do NOT have the good honour to be remembered with saccharine candy hearts and cards featuring Renaissance-era putti misindentified as cherubim, Cupid, or both. People like ( Read more... )

So. Christmas is over, New Year's is over, and the Feast of the Epiphany is nigh. How were my holidays this year?

MY HOLIDAYS THIS YEAR WERE GREAT.

I got to spend some time with some friends I hadn't seen in a really long time--friends from high school, no less, which means that they were my friends when pretty much nobody is really friends with ( Read more... )

The last most of you had heard from me, I'd just got back from watching True Grit. Since then, many things have happened.

On Christmas Eve, I made dinner (bubuzuke with the rice cooked in tawny port), which I think turned out pretty well, then opened one present, the first season of Marimite. I watched the first three episodes with my bemused mother ( Read more... )

Title: Shining Land
Fandom: Simoun
Pairing: Aaeru/Neviril. Immediately post-series.
Word count: 1,040
Notes: A Christmas present for chibirachy . This isn’t something that she probably would have written but it’s a more personal interpretation-for me-of her favourite pairing and I wrote it with her very much in mind.

( Read more... )

To-day I heard 'We Three Kings' on the radio. And they left out the myrrh verse, as many settings do.

It bothers me when people leave out the myrrh verse. I don't like it when people leave out that part of who Jesus was--and therefore what life is--just because God forbid the actual reason for the Incarnation, the actual harsh reality of footsore ( Read more... )

For all the talk about Santa/Father Christmas as a harbinger of a total commercialisation of Christmas, I'd like to actually take some time to talk about what I think this figure means. I think that Santa fills an important role in the Feast of the Nativity in that he is in effect the tutelary deity or prime spirit involved in what amounts to a ( Read more... )