Tag: state Christmas trees

Happy Strategies

A psychologist I follow on Instagram had a post today about happiness. His point was that happiness in life depends on the quality of your thoughts, and that the quality of your thoughts is something you can learn to control. His post got me thinking about my own prompts and strategies for emotional well-being and improving my thoughts, and it prompted me to write them all down so here they are.

1. Comparison is the thief of joy. There’s always going to be someone richer, better-looking, more accomplished, etc. Happiness comes from being content with what you have, and I have a lot—friends, a spacious apartment that I love, food in my belly, peace and quiet, a job.

2. Attachment is the root of all suffering. This includes being attached to the past as well as to things, people, and ways of thinking that are detriments to well-being.

3. Yes, there are genetic, epigenetic, experiential, and environmental aspects to depression and anxiety, but again, attachment comes into play. Depression is often about too much attachment to the past, which can’t be changed, so a good part of healing is in letting it go; anxiety is attachment to what you ultimately cannot control, be it the future, other people, or the state of the world, so do what I can in my own life and sphere, and then let it go.

4. Build on your strengths. We all have some, and that’s more fun and engaging than focusing on your shortcomings. 5. Feel the feelings. The only way out is through, so I allow myself to feel what I feel and work through it, even if it takes time and effort (as with grief when Inigo and I said goodbye), so I can let it go.

6. Help others. It will take you out of your own head for a while, and it feels good for both the people and creatures I help and for me, too.

7. Go outside. Walk around in as green a space as possible. Take in nature, its sounds, its sights, the smell of trees, grass, rain, snow. I find nothing as restorative as that.

8. Practice gratitude for what you have. After the heart attack I’m just happy to be alive.

And now for tonight’s state tree, going out to my friends on the Maryland side, Vicki, Deb, Vicky, and Louise. Unfortunately, the folks who set up the state trees put Maryland and Virginia next to each other but the signs were one in front of the other, so I couldn’t really get the Maryland sign in the photo as I have with the other trees. However, it’s clear it’s the Maryland tree because of all the crabs, heh. Also, there are ornaments with the state flag on it, and the state bird, the Baltimore Oriole.

Maryland's state Christmas tree, 2023.
Maryland’s state Christmas tree, 2023. Click to embiggen.

Here’s an ornament I bought while out on a fun afternoon in Ellicott City with Vicki and Deb.  (And it just occurred to me that I don’t have a Virginia ornament. THE SHAME!)

A Christmas ornament with the Maryland state flag on it.
We had a ball, so I got a ball.

A Postal Christmas

Back in the mid 1990s I was a contractor for the USPS, in their Stamp Services department at headquarters. I did technical editing, basically cleaning up the grammar in reports about stamp production and security. I also wrote responses to letters that the USPS received from customers about stamps.

The letters gave me some insight into humanity, boy howdy. For example, I came on board right after there was a brouhaha about a sheet of stamps called Legends of the West. They featured cowboys, and one of the stamps featured Black rodeo performer Bill Pickett’s younger brother, Ben Pickett, instead of Bill. The USPS recalled the misprinted sheets, but some of them were already out in circulation, so the USPS decided to have a lottery and release 150,000 sheets of the misprinted stamps at face value. The rule was that there could be only one sheet per household through the lottery, but some households entered multiple times and some households won more than one sheet. Also, resellers entered the lottery, which was against the rules, and some of them won and then turned around and sold the sheets for lots of money.

I had NO IDEA how angry stamp collectors could get over something like that. The letters poured in, at least two mail sacks full of outrage, and there I was, naive to the world of philately, sorting the letters in alphabetical order, entering addresses into a database, and printing out responses. It took me three months, but my then-boss had it worse: She had to sign the things by hand. I’mma boast a bit and share that they made me Employee of the Month for dealing with all of it after my third month there.

Then there was the guy who wrote in from prison. One of the guys I worked with was assigned to HQ for a year from Pittsburgh, where he was a warden before joining the USPS. I brought the letter over to him before I opened it and said, “Rick, one of yours?”

His eyes got huge and he said, “Put that down! Don’t open that without wearing gloves. You don’t know what kind of…bodily fluids…might be on that.”

It was a valid warning. The letter consisted of about six pages of demands, including how its author felt it was his right to mate with every woman in the United States, starting with those who worked for the USPS. Ewwwwww.

Then there were the ladies who wrote in on flowery stationery, by hand, to complain about that year’s Madonna and Child stamp. The baby Jesus was nude and oh my GAWD, you’d think the USPS was peddling child pornography. How dare they show Jesus’s penis? What kind of perverts ran the post office? On and on. All I could think was, “Wait a second. You are sexualizing an infant and you want to know who the pervert is?”

That year was also the year they released the first Bugs Bunny stamp. Oh, the outrage over THAT was just ridiculous. How dare the USPS put a CARTOON character on a stamp? But hey, I actually met Bugs Bunny when he came by the big holiday bash that year, so nanny-nanny boo-boo to those Scrooges.

A picture of the author with Bugs Bunny.
With Bugs Bunny, 1996

That board with all the stickies on it behind us on the right was a riot. They had a photographer come in a couple of weeks before the party and take pictures of everyone, including sneaky candids when folks weren’t looking. We put the pictures up on the board and stickies were captions submitted by guests. Gotta say, that was a fabulous party. I should have taken photos of the office because I was tasked with decorating for the whole shebang.

I loved my time there, enough so that if I wasn’t so set on being a health writer, I’d have put in an application to be an official USPS employee. Plus, they had great swag back then, like these two beauties.

A Christmas ornament featuring a postage stamp of American holly.
USPS American Holly stamp ornament, circa 1997.
A Christmas ornament featuring the Midnight Angel postage stamp.
USPS Midnight Angel stamp ornament, circa 1995.

Oh, lawd, people complained about the Midnight Angel stamp, too. How dare the USPS have a “Christmas Traditional” stamp without Jesus on it? AND WHY IS IT SELF-STICK?!?!? (Stamp collectors HATED the self-stick stamps because they couldn’t be mounted on hinges like the lick’ems.)

It’s a beautiful stamp, though, eh? One of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, actually.

And now for tonight’s state Christmas tree, going out to my friend Don, who absolutely does not miss Maine winters. Don and I have the same quirky sense of humor and he has me in stitches every time I see him. When my city-hiking buddies and I get together for various and sundry non-hiking events, it’s a fair bet that at some point Don and I will be off to the side cracking up about something, and that something will often be inappropriate to repeat to clergy. Here’s to you, Don!

Maine's state Christmas tree, 2023.
Maine’s state Christmas tree, 2023. Click to embiggen.

O Christmas Tree, Oops Christmas Tree

Long day of cleaning, laundry, and cooking, and I decided to put up my tree this year, so this will be a short one. I’m putting up my own tree just to celebrate the fact that I survived the heart attack. The decorations were amassed over the years and my travels, inherited from my parents, or given to me by friends, and I want to look back on all of it in gratefulness for the joy I’ve known in this life, while also looking forward to many more years of life, lawd willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

Here is Washington, D.C.’s tree for the year, going out to a whole bunch of people–Don, Mark, Scott, Haisam, Amanda, and Cyndi.

Washington, D.C.'s state Christmas tree, 2023.
Washington, D.C.’s state Christmas tree, 2023. Click to embiggen.

As long as I’m posting D.C.’s tree, I’ll add the National Christmas tree as well, since all of these trees are in D.C.

The National Christmas Tree, lit up at night.
The National Christmas Tree, 2023. What a hot mess.

Yes, it’s looking a little rough. It fell over and had to be hoisted back up with a crane. I don’t think they did too much to fix the lights or the streamers. When I first took a good look at it, I thought someone had TP’d it.

Then there is the other extreme, the tree in front of the Town Hall in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. A smaller tree down by the water in Old Town looked the same. I guess they don’t believe in putting anything on top.

Christmas tree at night.
Christmas tree in front of Alexandria Town Hall in Virginia.

To be honest, I prefer the National Tree. I prefer a wild, hot mess to stringent precision. Pretty sure that’s how my own tree will turn out tonight, too. Usually I weave the lights through the branches one at a time, but I don’t have the patience for it so it’s a rather loose weave. By the time I’m done with the lights I might be done for the evening and have to put off decorating the tree until tomorrow night, but that’s okay. No one is going to see it but me, and it’s worth it.