A busy day

      The outside Christmas lights are up. My tree is up and lit, but still needs to be decorated. I went Christmas shopping and got a bit of it done. My house is dusted and vacuumed. Whew. I'm tired.
      Christmas shopping was a somewhat dismaying experience. As part of my DDP, I made a budget for all my Christmas gifts. Confession time: I have spent money like a French king at Christmases past. I enjoy giving gifts, and if I found the "perfect" one, I bought it, no matter if it would take me the next six months to pay off. But you can't keep doing that without the over spending eventually catching up with you. The last two Christmases have been terribly tight. Not enough money to go around. Well, I can't do it anymore. I have to control my spending, and that is that. I know I can find good gifts for everyone within my budget, but it feels ... weird. I called a relative and asked for gift suggestions for family member this morning. I had to tell her that a couple of her suggestions were out of my budget. She acted a bit odd about it, or maybe I perceived her response as that way. I'm sure it was a surprise to her. I have to cut back, but it made me feel diminished in some way. I can't really explain it, and I can't help it.
      And speaking of confession time, I haven't been writing as I should. I didn't expect the agent's rejection to take the wind out of my sails, but it has. It's a great surprise to me as I'm the original bump'n'go boy, but this one hurt in unexpectedly ways. I type on my story almost daily, but something is missing. It's just typing, not writing. I will recover from this. I always do. But it's not much fun during the recovery.
      I also made headway on the December Gazette today. I hope to finish it this coming week. Have I mentioned the Gazette yet? No? Well, the Gazette is a monthly family newsletter that I publish. I started it after my mother passed away and I realized that her life was largely unknown. All her earlier history was gone. I stayed angry at myself for months that I, a writer with a degree in journalism, had never taken the time to sit down and interview my mother. There were so many things about her that I hadn't learned and never will in this life.
      I'm slow, but not totally stupid. I started taping my father as he told stories about his childhood. Then, to share them with my sibs, I printed them up and mailed them out. The Gazette was born as a one-color, no illustrations flyer. I interviewed my dad monthly, which was about all he would do. When he passed away, I had nearly five years of stories and hours of tape. I find those a comfort now. During that time, the Gazette grew and changed.
      The cost of the Gazette became too much for me so I began to request subscription money, not really expecting much but hoping for some help. Amazingly, my family and friends subscribed cheerfully. While I still lose money on the Gazette, their subscriptions go a long way toward helping it not be such a burden and I appreciate their help and willingness to document and share our lives together.
      After my father's death, I thought I would stop the Gazette since I figured the family wouldn't be interested in continuing without him and I wasn't sure I wanted to. To my surprise, they strongly urged me to keep on. After a three month lapse, the Gazette did.
      Today, the Gazette is still published monthly and has full-color photos and illustrations. In September, we started our 10th year of publication. It features columns, travel articles, memories, devotions, recipes, stories, jokes and more by me, my sibs, my aunts and uncles and friends of the family. I gain a new subscriber ever so often, and while it still loses money, it's to the point that I can easily handle it and feel like it's just part of my contribution to our family history.
      The Gazette has helped my writing grow and keeps me in front of a computer, wrestling with words. Some articles that I've written for it have been published in other magazines as well as serving as inspiration for plays and short stories. It's a source of monthly feedback and encouragement.
      While you might not be interested in producing something like that for your family, do take the time to interview your parents and grandparents. You will end up with something that you and your children and their children will treasure. Not to mention it might spark your creativity in ways you can't imagine.