11.28.06

Christmas “Wrap”

Posted in poetry, babble, holidays at 12:44 pm by Deb

It’s that time of year again when everyone goes nuts, stressing out, driving aggressively, going into debt and forgetting what the season should really be about. Every year I notice decorations going up earlier and the crazy rush of traffic getting earlier as well. A friend of mine told me about returning to New York from New Jersey at 2 am on “Black Friday” and getting stuck in a huge traffic jam at the first tollbooth on the Thruway, just over the New York border. Apparently, there is a big mall there. People were backed up for miles trying to be one of the first in line for the big bargains. It really amazes me that this is what American culture has become. A few years ago I wrote this poem. I guess it’s time to post it up here. The end of it is sung to the very end of the tune “Twelve days of Christmas.” Hope you enjoy it. I do!

Xmas Wrap © Deb Cavanaugh

Twas 2 months before Christmas and all through the stores

nothing was moving. We had to sell more.

We’d tried all the gimmicks save one that can’t fail -

our annual pre-Halloween Christmas sale.

The stock market was hung in the balance with care

in hopes that great profit soon would be there.

Displays were all lit and then rearranged.

The mood of the store had been drastically changed.

All through the wee hours, anticipation mounted.

Maybe the sleds should have been discounted.

But the lines had all formed. People jammed at the door.

One minute to go til we open the store.

And we heard the boss say as he turned on the light,

“Merry Christmas to all, and we hope the price is right.”

At the end of the day, as employees departed,

we had all of this, and we’d only just started.

12 fainting ladies - 11 heart attacks - 10 cashiers quitting

9 broken TVs - 8 stolen purses - 7 crying babies - 6 mothers screaming

5 - bouncing checks

4 accidents - 3 lost kids - 2 shoplifters

and a Santa bouncing children on his knee.

Happy Holidays, whatever holiday you celebrate and whenever you celebrate it. We all celebrate at different times during the next few months. Please slow down and notice the people around you and the beauty in the world. We only live once, our children grow up in the blink of an eye, and it’s a shame to look back on our lives with regret. Please stay tuned - I will be writing about our Solstice celebrations soon. We start on Friday, Dec. 1st with our daily candle lighting. When I left my ex-husband, I decided I didn’t want to battle over who would be with our kids during Christmas. I always hated the commercialism anyway, so I decided to celebrate the Winter Solstice. I invented a wonderful ritual which includes “snow fairies” instead of Santa. More to come…

11.16.06

Gigs galore

Posted in babble, music news at 7:10 pm by Deb

Whew! I almost forgot I had this blog until suddenly, while reading my e-mail tonight, I found we had gotten two new comments. Oh yeah, that blog I used to write pretty regularly. We have been playing so much, I hardly have time to breathe. We’ve been averaging between 3 - 5 gigs a month. Now, I know that doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re working full-time and raising a family, it’s really a lot. We celebrated our 13th anniversary last week by staying home. What a treat that was. This weekend we have an event every day - Friday evening right through Sunday. I do manage to write in my journal at least twice a week, quite a change from everyday. In the past month we played two Halloween gigs - one I did by myself and both paid well. We also played our regular cafes and had a gig in Potsdam at Clarkson University. That was fun. It was quite a trek, though. I didn’t realize that it was almost to the Canadian border. It was almost a 5 hour drive each way, but we really enjoyed traveling through the Adirondack Park and enjoyed our uninterrupted time together. The gig was also lots of fun. We both agreed we’d like to do more of those. We also found time to do a photo shoot. Some of our new photos are on our website and also on our MySpace account. You can also check out our songs there. Things are moving along. It’s just a little exhausting.