From BlogHer with love: Wishing you all the joys of the season!

December 24, 2008

Hi everyone,

On behalf of Elisa, Jory and the entire BlogHer team, I'm writing to wish you and yours all the joys of the season. May you rest. May you feel love and hope. May you giggle.

I'm doing all of that, in my first of two sinful weeks off this holiday. Today, for example, would be my late maternal grandmother's 100th birthday. To celebrate in her honor, I will drink a bourbon and pop a chocolate-covered cherry into my mouth, as I continue organizing twelve years of photos and art projects I've collected from my son. Shazam -- in a single, mushy, nostalgic day I'm going to transform her loss and my-son-needs-a-babybook-during-adolesence-guilt into a party for two people I love so much. I've had some help along the way -- so here, let me share the advice I took from BlogHer this week:

1. Your holiday -- that's right, YOUR holiday!
2. Spirit of the season: Charitableness -- not Charity -- for Christmas, Chanukah and beyond
3. Yum: Oh fudge, the greatest holiday candy ever
4. Motherhood: He's having my baby
5. Infertility and Infant Loss Blog Search: BlogHer's news and blogroll widget
6. Politics: Two Carols are up for Hillary's seat, plus red vs. blue versions of Obama's first 100 days. And hey, did VP Cheney admit a war crime?
7. BlogHer Conference 2009: Sessions, International Scholarship, and we're hiring!

Here are the details:

1. Your holiday -- that's right, YOUR holiday!
"What is one thing (or many) you will shamelessly enjoy this holiday season?" asks Maria Niles, in her essay One Thing I Will Shamelessly Enjoy This Holiday Season. She has a terrific round-up, including Jen Lemen's "You Ought To" and advice from Sarah at The Pink of Perfection that I'm considering having tattooed on my arm. No lie.

I also recommend Susan Mernit's second installment on holiday family hilarity: The Ultimate No-Nos: Holiday Faux Pas Revisited. "Here are some of the faux pas I can imagine committing, or that I worry these folks will do with me..." Oh Susan, please wear a wire!

And now, for my present: SuperJive's You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: Disastrous Presents and You. Go read this thing, you deserve it.

Related:
Susan Wagner: Four ways to wear a brooch without looking like somebody's grandma
Virginia DeBolt: No guilt! Recycling electronics is easier than ever

2. Spirit of the season: Charitableness -- not Charity -- for Christmas, Chanukah and beyond
"It's my goal to raise kids that are altruistic to a fault: a quality I see becoming lost in our consumerist culture - one that we are definitely a part of (I do not deny that they are spoiled)," blogs Maria Young, as she tells the story of taking her two girls and their gifts to a local shelter and the battered woman they saw. "I want Isabella and Rosario to be aware that there is always something they can do, no matter how small, and that they always should..."

Meanwhile, Beth Canter is working to blend cultures and wants your advice in, How Do You Bring Traditions From Other Cultures Into Your Family Celebrations? And what to do if you're working to preserve your family's culture at this time of year? "My older daughter is definitely going thru some serious X-mas jealousy this year," muses BlogHer Niran, whose family moved from a diverse city neighborhood to the suburbs and public school this year, where her Jewish daughter sees Christmas everywhere. "With her, as it became clear this week, wondering around the neighborhood- it's the holiday decoration, she just loves GLITZ. The sparkly lights, the shiny, frilly ribbons....Happy holidays everyone, enjoy your families, the holiday food, the decor/ glitz, gifts or whatever that THING is for you."

Related:
Mata H: Favorite Holiday Memory? I'll Show You Mine, Please Show Me Yours
Sexandsuburbia: Oy vey...it's Christmas
Rachelle Mee Chapman: Comfort for a Blue Christmas and Other Holiday Lows

3. Yum: Oh fudge, the greatest holiday candy ever
Thank you, Kalyn, for tempting us with this terrific recipe. And thank YOU, Catherine Morgan, for keeping us on the healthiest possible path with your ongoing special 61 days to better health.

Related:
Alanna Kellogg: Retro or Rawks: Cheese Ball Recipes
Catherine Morgan: Healthy Holiday Cookie Recipes

4. Motherhood: He's having my baby
What better time than the holidays to talk about birth, sex, how one affects the other and what to do when you need a pet psychologist to help too? I know -- this sentence is confusing -- but I urge you to read the following links, some of which had me laughing until tears streamed down my face. Some of these are not safe for work. Which is why I hope you're on vacation too. Enjoy:

Her Bad Mother: Birth the 'I'll Have What She's Having' Way
Amy Gates: Giving Birth Can Be Good, Ecstatic, Even Orgasmic
Morra Aarons-Mele: When Pets Meet New Baby: Love or Jealousy?
Rita Arens: Husband Traumatized By the Delivery Room?

5. Infertility and Infant Loss Blog Search: BlogHer's news and blogroll widget
Have you or someone you love lost a baby? Find women who know what you're going through. BlogHer's Infertility and Infant Loss blog search helps people learn what their diagnosis might mean, find real-world feedback on procedures and treatments, learn coping and communication strategies that really work, explore all options, discover the wisdom of amazing bloggers, and get support.

Use our Infertility and Infant Loss blog search widget to find new blogs to add to your feed reader, or to search for specific diagnoses, procedures and topics. All results will come from BlogHer infertility, TTC, and infant loss blogs:
For Your iPhone
For Your Treo, Blackberry, Nokia, or other mobile device
For Your Blog

6. Politics: Two Carols are up for Hillary's seat, plus red vs. blue versions of Obama's first 100 days. And hey, did VP Cheney admit a war crime?
PunditMom interviewed Feminist Majority Chair Eleanor Smeal and learned that there's new competition for the seat of outgoing Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has been named by President-elect Obama as his choice for secretary of state. While Caroline Kennedy's name has been in the news, Smeal supports Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Find out why.

Meanwhile, Twitter and the BlogHersphere prove every day that while media hype over Election 2008 is over, conservative and progressive voters continue pawing the ground in anticipation of what changes the Obama administration will bring to American policy, from the Second Amendment to the nation's economic crisis. "I don't want this country to fail or for progress to become entangled in a series of blunders and bad choices any more than the next person," blogs Mamalogues in What Conservatives Fear Most in the First 100 Days. "I want this country to prosper, we all do. Everyone deserves a fair chance. A fair chance, not a blind eye." From the pro-Obama camp, Erin Kotecki Vest blogged earlier in December "In the first 100 days, it's all about the economy."

Finally, Professor Kim Pearson wraps up the year with this blockbuster post: Did Vice President Cheney admit to a war crime? What do you think?

Related:
Suzanne Reisman: Feminism and Gender in 2008: The Good, the Bad and the Election
Virginia DeBolt: Net Neutrality Still in the Spotlight While Broadband Still Stinks

7. BlogHer Conference 2009: Sessions, International Scholarship, and we're hiring!
Elisa Camahort Page announced the first step in planning BlogHer '09 and laid out our calendar for the rest of the year -- including a very exciting scholarship program for five international activist BlogHers:
Step 1. Four tracks of sessions, based on community ideas and submissions (Announced today, December 18! More below)
Step 2. Two tracks of Room of Your Own sessions, which you, as attendees program (Coming soon!)
Step 3. The Geek Lab, which you can program too (Coming soon!)
Step 4. Birds of a Feather (aka topic-specific) meet-ups over lunch (self-formed on the day of the conference. More below)
Step 5. BlogHer '09 Scholarships (available to five international activist BlogHers...announced today!)

In closing, I want to thank Kristy Sammis for all that she's done for BlogHer, congratulate her and her baby-daddy on this incredible news and invite everyone interested to apply -- BlogHer's hiring an event planner.

Happy New Year! Our next email newsletter will be the week of Jan. 5.

Best,
Lisa

for Elisa, Jory and Lisa, BlogHer co-founders