My Family

I just recieved an interseting phone call from my mom. I had sent her my first paper where I talked about my family tradition of decorating our Christmas tree. After reading it, she talked to my dad and brother and they decieded to only get the Christmas tree and put lights on it. Then, when I come home, we are going to decorate the tree as a family. I'm so happy that I can still get to spend this important time with my family. Now I am getting ready to come home, I think I can finally appericate the phrase "home for the holidays". As much as I love it here, I like to go home and see family and friends. I'm hoping that it will be a fun and really happy Christmas.

Wooohoooo for the end of the semseter

So, with paper 6 done and out of the way, I can finally relax for a minute before I start studying for finals. Its hard to believe that we are almost done with the semester. This was probably the fastest 4 months ever. So, I have learned a lot about the Christmas holiday. I had no idea of the Satrunalia tradition or that the church adopted the holiday. Nissenbaum pointed out a lot interesting facts about Christmas as well. For example, that Santa Clause was developed by the elite class and that Clement Clark Moore made our jolly friend known. I guess I feel more "educated" about the holiday. Christmas shouldn't be about buying the biggest and best gifts. Instead, you should be grateful for what you have, and spend time with the ones you love.

Paper 6

Wow this last paper is a lot harder than it seems. To correct your own work is really difficult. I think you see 2 ends of the sectrum and not a lot in between. You are either to easy on yourself or to hard. Personally I don't mind correcting other peoples papers. For this paper, I have to sit down and agonize through each sentence and paragraph. Its long and its difficult. I am having a little trouble figureing out where i am going to put my second paragraph. It deals indirectly with the thesis, so I am still figuring out what to do. Thats about it for now.

Chapter 7

So we are almost done with Nissenbaum's book...YAY!!!!!! I thought that this chapter was different from all the others. The author spends a lot of time talking about the traditions in the norhtern states. I honestly didn't realize that we hadn't talked about the southern traditions. I think you see a lot of the wassiling traditions caried over in the south. I guess what I am trying to say is that they kept the loud, public Christmas longer than the northern states. While northerners were bringing Christmas inside, the south still celebrated outside because of slavery. The slaves had the opprotunity to "over step" normal boundries of the time. The slaves would dress in the cloths similar to those of the master. They could travel freely and see family and friends at other plantations, and were allowed to have good food, drink alcohol, dance, and be merry. The masters would usually come down to the slave quarters and the group would celebrate Christmas. The masters could use the celebration as a bribe so the slaves would not cause trouble durring the year. To me, it seems as though the traditions are the same as the feudal wassiling. I think thats enough for now on Chapter 7.