christmas portraits

that comic above pretty much sums up my christmas. since andrew couldn't get any time off work around christmastime, christmas spirit was pretty grim around the house, and we decided to hold off till ukranian christmas....which is technically tomorrow, i believe, but this year will serve as some random date after christmas to eat a good (ukranian) feast and perhaps do the gift thing. i did get him two small things, but he got me nothin'. thank goodness his family braved the impending snowfall on the 25th and saved christmas!
i took some photos of emily and andrew last month to give to their mom as a brother/sister christmas gift, and while i've made things like jewelry and purses many times before, giving photographs was a first for me this year, and it packed so much more punch than pretty ear danglies. we had fun walking around granville island with its bold, colorful buildings, but it was very, very cold.

i have mixed feelings about christmas, and it's the same sentiment i have when i'm faced with yet another family birthday with each new month. i'm so tired of giving stuff for the sake of giving stuff, and receiving it, too (although andrew's family gets me the most intuitively perfect gifts i've ever received, so that's not included in this blanket statement). do any of us really need more things? no. perhaps moreso for me because i lack the capacity to throw anything out and i am already struggling with organization issues. if i find some fantastic gift for someone, then i think it's very appropriate to buy it and gift it. take a stemless wineglass set i found for my dad, who is constantly knocking his merlot over and shattering glass all over the fireplace bricks. or really, really good knives that my mom can enjoy as her own for the first time in her life, and she cooks a lot. i don't know how she survived without good knives for so many years. i want to buy fu-fu a $1300 D90-SLR because i think he'd get really good use out of it with his children and be able to use all his old nikon lenses, and perhaps we'd never have to buy him a gift ever again (yes! because grown men are so hard to buy for! i don't think andrew and i have ever been able to successfully think of anything to get suk-suk). but buying a useless gift for the sake of just getting a gift is so frustrating to me.