So with only a few hours until left until the big guy slides down your chimney I thought I would leave you all with some Christmas cheer. Pesky Apostrophe in all of her innate wisdom inspired this post. Is it me or is there some family resemblance between these guys?

Christmas Eve… 2005 is almost over and as I reflect over this year there have been so many memorable moments. I’ve been thinking of how I’m going to encapsulate all that has gone on in this year. I know that many a friend has created a mixed cd to speak to what the year has held for them but since I’m not a musical mixmaster I could not do justice to a musical montage. Rather, I’m providing my Best and Worst List for 2005.

January

Best: 200,000 people were killed (not the best) when the Tsunami struck December 26, 2004. The aftermath of the destruction caused an outpouring of generosity around the world through financial and inkind donations to Asia. Bush revised the tax laws to allow donors to make contributions to Tsunami relief that would provide tax breaks for donors on their 2004 tax returns.

Worst: Bush was reelected in November 2004 and was sworn in for a second term on the 20th of January.

February, March, and April

Best: I caught up on my reading list. I finished reading Sarah Vowell’s The Partly Cloudy Patriot, David Rakoff’s Fraud, Augusten Burrough’s Running with Scissors, Gregory MaGuire’s Wicked, and reread David Sedaris’ Naked and Christopher Moore’s Lamb. (Of course I kept up on my classroom reading too….really… Nonprofit Consulting is spellbinding).

Worst: The government is one step closer to controlling our thoughts… a microchip was imbedded into the brain of a 25 year old paralysed man. The chip reads his mind and sends his thoughts to a computer to decipher. So, with one thought, he can think his TV on and off.

May

Best: My first special event, a Bachelor & Bachelorette Auction for the Dallas Jewish community, was a success, despite the months of agony of dealing with 12 bachelors and bachelorettes… thank goodness for valium.

Worst: The agony continued as I was still in the midst of organizing the JCC’s annual golf tournament with grown up versions of my bachelors and bachelorettes. Sweet agony!

June

Best: I finally broke down and signed up for Netflix. You know it’s the epitome of laziness when my joy in life is walking down to my mailbox to get the latest movie rather than driving a quarter of a mile to the Blockbuster and picking out a flick.

Worst: The JCC, always in constant financial crisis, canned my boss and decided that I could run the development department with the "help" of lay leaders…. Welcome to the 7th level of HELL!

July

Best: The celebration of my 25th year on this plane of existence. Time to rock the casbah!

Worst: The bombing of London’s underground came as a rude awakening to those who thought the terrorist threats were under control. 52 people died and 700 were injured as bombs detonated in a coordinated attack on the underground trains and a double decker bus.

August

Best: I started sending out my resume in hopes of getting a new job. No more JCC for me!

Worst: Hurricane Katrina wipes out New Orleans and other Louisiana towns and those that could not evacuate were stranded as the local, state, and national government provided an ineffectual response to the devastation, death, and destruction that the hurricane left in its immediate aftermath and the ensuing weeks. While thousands were left stranded, Bush refused to cut short his vacation at Crawford Ranch.

September

Best: Rhett Miller at Bend Studio. The previous concert resulted in a devestating loss of a photo of myself with my favorite lead singer but alas, he returned to Bend and I, with my trusty camera in tow, recaptured my lost photo. This month also saw one of my few cd purchases of the year; the much anticipated, Old 97’s live album!

Worst: Hurricane Rita hit the Texas/Louisiana coast and redevastated New Orleans and forced the evacuation of the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina refugees trying to start over in Houston were forced to reevacuate to North Texas. A bus, filled with nursing home evacuees, on its way to Dallas, exploded on the highway due to a spark set off by faulty breaks that ignited therapeutic oxygen tanks onboard. Because the individuals had limited mobility more than half of those on the bus died in the incident.

October

Best: The JCC’s fall fundraiser, An Evening of Improv, went off without a hitch after the agony of dealing with committee members day in and day out. The same afternoon I put in my resignation at the JCC and accepted a job at the Symphony.

Worst: An earthquake rocked Pakistan and has killed more than 100,000 individuals. An estimated 3.3 million were left homeless and as the winter snows approach more are expected to die from a lack of shelter and the spread of disease.

November

Best: My trip to Africa! 2 weeks of glorious fun, excitement, and education. The mountains, the townships, the nonprofits, and all the people I met along the way.

Worst: Leaving Africa after 2 weeks of glorious fun, excitement, and education.

December

Best: The completion of my Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Management! Two years of hard work that ensures that I will be underpaid but happy.

Second Best: Bush says that his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the result of faulty intelligence and accepts responsibility for his crappy decision.

Worst: President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated that the Holocaust was a "myth" and said Europeans have used it to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world. He proposed that Israel be moved to Europe, the U.S., or Alaska so that Palestine doesn’t have to ‘pay for the crimes of the supposed Holocaust’.

Ok, that’s all folks. That’s my Year in Review. I tried to mix in a bit of personal, local, national, and international incidents that shaped my 2005. Of course my life looks a bit trite in consideration of all of the world affairs going on but c’est la vie.

Dear condo:

I know that you’re bitter; I’m never around, I don’t see you anymore… But you are freshly cleaned and organized. Can’t that be enough?

Dearly departed Christmas cards:

Damn you! Why must you taunt me from within the confines of your hermetically sealed plastic wrap! You should have learned by now that you’ll never experience the freedom of other holiday cards; you’ll never have the joy of being opened by another set of hands. You’ve been sitting in a closet for three years, figure it out and stop judging me!

P.S. Your fate awaits you, you’ve been enlisted into the Salvation Army. Your mission is to be sold to someone who embraces Christmas cheer and will write grandiose stories within your folds to send to their friends and family.

Dear Banana Republic, Victoria’s Secret, American Eagle, Amazon, and all my retailer friends:

You sent me a card! I feel so special! I didn’t do anything for you. Stop by for some last-minute shopping? It’s the least I could do…

Dear Hammie:

I feed you, clean your litter, vacuum up the tiny gray hairs, and sing to you. Is that enough? NO…. You look disdainfully down your nose, prance away, and curl up on a chair, and snub me. No more I tell you, no longer will I be your little Asian houseboy. Enough is enough!

Dear Holiday Cheer:

I curse you. I curse you and the day that Hallmark sold their soul and started selling little dancing snowmen that play the piano, sing Christmas songs, and make you rue the day that baby Jesus’ birth was turned into a marketing ploy. Baby Jesus judges you!

Dear TV producers:

Why? Why are my shows on hiatus until March? I beg you please buck the system and provide American tv viewers with something better than "My Mom, the Stripper, Wants to Marry a Prison Inmate!" reality show and "Robbie the Reindeer: Bastard Son of Rudolf and Vixen" holiday special. There will be mutiny I tell you! Mutiny!

Oh, the joy of CNN. Where else could you read a story one day about Rio de Janeiro requiring night clubs, shopping malls, movie theaters and large restaurants to provide a third type of bathroom for transvestites and the next day read about Tokyo’s zoo enforcing a fitness regime for their pudgy King Penguins?

You may not have known that Rio boasts a population of nearly 28,000 transvestites. Apparently, transvestites don’t like going out publicly because there isn’t a bathroom for them and thus lawmakers are trying to pass this innovative bill through city council. If only the U.S. was nearly as tolerant and willing to fight discrimination as Brazil….

But here’s the real story you’ve been waiting for; I know you’ve been yearning for some happy penguiny dreams tonight! Thursday, Asahiyama Zoo started taking the penguins on 500-yard walks on the snowy grounds twice a day to fight the fat and increased blood-sugar level that accumulate during the winter months.

"In order to withstand the cold, the penguins have a habit of standing very still during winter months," Yamazaki said, while in the summer they can swim as much as they want.

To fend off obesity, the zoo instituted the winter exercise program in 2003. The penguins have tender webbed feet and can walk significant distances only on snow, so the program can take place only during the colder months.

The zoo, on the northern island of Hokkaido about 550 miles northwest of Tokyo, takes the penguins on strolls from December until April.

They all go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah

They all go marching one by one,

The little one stops to suck his thumb

They all go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah

They all go marching two by two,

The little one stops to tie his shoe

They all go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah

They all go marching three by three,

The little one stops to climb a tree

And they all go marching down to the ground

To get out of the rain!

So for those of you who keep up on the day to day news, hoping that maybe Bush will receive a lobotomy and the presidential terrier, Barney, will take office, received the next best thing yesterday when CNN reported that "Bush Takes Responsibility".

Now that’s just an interesting quote, what’s he taking responsibility for? Jacking up the presidency for the past 5 years? Screwing over the nation’s middle America so he can spot those tax breaks for his corporate supporters and send the seniors out to pasture with crappy Medicare? Or, has he finally admitted that the war in Iraq was a gigantic mistake?

Well, hold your horses folks, we’ve got a winner! Bush actually said that he took responsibility for going to war on faulty intelligence. Of course he quickly said he still thought removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision.

"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush said during his fourth and final speech before Thursday’s vote for Iraq’s parliament. "As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I’m also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we’re doing just that."

"My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision," the president said. "Saddam was a threat and the American people, and the world is better off because he is no longer in power." (http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html)

Of course I’m sure this has nothing to do with the plummeting of Bush’s approval rating to 36%; And strangely enough people seemed to buy this "Oh, oops, sorry the intelligence information was incorrect but look I still put a bad man behind bars" PR line.

But I can be happy in knowing that although his approval rating is no longer at an alltime low there are still 58 out of every 100 people that see through the puppetry strings and think "We’re all going to die if we can’t get this idiot out of office." (Ok, maybe not all of them admit they think that, but I tell you, it’s in the back of their minds).

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is greeted by President George W. Bush and Barney upon the Prime Minister’s arrival Monday, April 11, 2005, to the President’s ranch in Crawford. (Just bide your time little buddy, your time is near…the presidency is almost yours…)

I was watching ABC’s "Primetime" tonight when they showed an interesting segment about charitable giving in the U.S. Of course working in the development field I was intrigued with what they had to say:

Glitz, Glamour Affecting Charitable Giving?

Charities Serving Poor Sometimes Take Second Place to More Alluring Causes

Dec. 8, 2005 — This year alone, charitable giving in America is expected to reach at least $250 billion, with many Americans writing their checks in these last few weeks of the year, so their donations will still count toward this year’s tax deduction.

And for some of the wealthiest Americans, it is not only the season of giving, but also the season of lavish black-tie events. According to publicist and society columnist R. Couri Hay, "It’s all about charities. Social life in New York revolves around giving, and so every single night there are five, six, maybe even 10 parties during the busy season a night where you can go and give to a worthy cause."

The charity game is now in full swing as the rich, the powerful, and the famous mingle in circles where the level of opulence can seem incredibly out of place if the true goal is to help the needy.

"It’s glamorous, and the room looks beautiful, and everyone’s dressed up in beautiful gowns and jewels, but they’re raising millions of dollars while they do it, and they’re looking good," says Hay of the charity game. "Wow, I mean, what could be better than that?"

Over the last week, New York’s charity circuit has included galas for scholarship funds, music programs, the blind, a variety of diseases and a star-studded event to raise money for a museum program to teach children about classic movies and television shows. Director Ron Howard was the guest of the honor at that even, where tables cost $25,000 each.

"Celebrities really help," says Hay. "We’re still in a celebrity culture so everybody wants our celebrities at the party. You know, you add a celebrity, you have an excitement. And people pay money to be near a celebrity."

Neediest Overlooked?

Yet, while most of the grand events, such as a charity gala at the Waldorf Astoria, each raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, some people are left out in the cold.

"Americans are giving more and more and more to charity, they’re giving less and less and less to the poorest citizens in this country," says Trent Stamp, who runs a non-profit Web site called the Charity Navigator, which evaluates and tracks where America’s charitable contributions go.

"There’s no doubt that American donors have abandoned the poor in terms of their philanthropic decision-making," says Stamp. "These are not the right types of charities that are endorsed by celebrities. These are not the types of charities that send you a tote bag when you make a gift."

Last year, contributions to charities working with the poor decreased to 8 percent of all money given, marking the third consecutive year of decline.

"For the most part, the large donor, the wealthy donor has turned away from these types of charities," says Stamp. "Nobody wants to be seen at the local homeless shelter, but they would like to be seen at the Symphony Hall."

Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, a former New York City social services commissioner, attests to that. She works with many of the city’s smaller charities that deal directly with the poor and the homeless.

"I have donors that will give a $25,000 check to Lincoln Center, and they’ll give us a thousand dollar check," Barrios-Paoli acknowledges. "You know, the big universities get a lot of the money, the big cultural centers get a lot of the money. And again, I’m not saying they shouldn’t, but the reality is that we have the, we don’t have access to the money, and we really need it."

All of this leads to the question, recently posed by The New York Times, whether all charities and non-profit organizations are equal.

Universities are considered non-profits and in some cases have billions in assets. For example, Harvard has $22 billion, and Yale’s endowment is $12 billion.

Ivy League Criticism

Television personality Ben Stein, a Yale Law School graduate, met a lot of criticism when he first suggested universities with billions of dollars in assets were getting a disproportionate percentage in donor dollars.

"The generosity of individuals is much more meaningful to a local soup kitchen than it is to Yale," he said.

Yet all charities are created equal in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service. A donation to the museum featuring classic movies and television shows gets the same tax advantage as a donation to a soup kitchen in Harlem.

"If you’re working with citizens in this country who are not eating tonight, to me, that’s a much more worthwhile cause than people who like to hear a symphony," comments Stamp. As for this winter, he says, "I think it’s going to be a very cold and very hungry winter for our most vulnerable citizens."

There’s also a New York Times article that asks "What is Charity?" It’s a bit long and you have to register to read the full article at nytimes.com but if you’re interested I saved it and will email it upon request (at least pretend to be interested…. and act like maybe you’ll read it…. expand your mind…. not too much to ask…).

So now, I have to ask what does this mean? I work for a "charity"; the symphony…. one of the infamous glamourous and alluring causes that the wealthy flock to throw around their philanthropic dollars…. So where does this leave me? Does raising money for a nonsocial service agency actually make a difference? Am I contributing to a problem rather than helping a cause? Hmmmm.

Tis the season for pesky conservative bullshit. Here’s the latest political fodder courtesy of www.upi.com:

Bush’s ‘holiday’ cards omit Christmas

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (UPI) — While the huge tree at the U.S. Capitol is officially called a Christmas tree, there’s no mention of Christmas in President George Bush’s annual greeting cards.

Bush and his wife Laura are sending a record 1.4 million cards this month, wishing a happy "holiday season" to friends and supporters, paid for the Republican Party’s National Committee.

But the political correctness of the wording doesn’t sit well with some, even fellow conservatives, The Washington Post said.

Bush "claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn’t act like one," said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss., agrees.

"It bothers me that the White House card leaves off any reference to Jesus, while we’ve got Ramadan celebrations in the White House," Wildmon said. "What’s going on there?"

Susan Whitson, Laura Bush’s press secretary, said the Bushes themselves celebrate Christmas.

"Their cards in recent years have included best wishes for a holiday season, rather than Christmas wishes, because they are sent to people of all faiths," Whitson said.

Can I just say WTF?! God forbid the White House do something remotely politically correct and inclusive of all faiths and religions without a political commentary from someone like Pat Robertson or the entirety of the Christian Coalition. Did you poor, repressed Christians not learn in 6th grade history that the U.S. is a veritable MELTING POT and we were all about welcoming all races, creeds, cultures, and religions to our country with open arms?! [Don’t even get me started on how the U.S. welcome wagon really works…]

Let’s just take a minute and think about why Christmas is the way it is; the commercialization and greediness that personifies Christmas is just the tip of the iceberg. Hmmm….so perhaps if conservatives stopped focusing on tax breaks that trick the masses by putting a $1 in their pockets just so they could turn around and spend $10 at Wal-mart and focus on some social reform (I don’t know, maybe credit education so we could teach future generations not to spend money like water and end up in financial peril…) we might not have every holiday shoved into some nifty, tearjerker of a marketing piece by Hallmark.

So, all that said, again I ask WTF? Christians aren’t getting a raw deal in the U.S. Most companies recognize Good Friday, Easter Sunday, as well as Christmas as holidays. There are no national holidays for Ramadan, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or Diwali. So who’s getting the crap end of the stick now?

Now take your holiday cards, dry your crocodile tears, and stop bullshitting about freaking Christmas. How about you pull your heads out of your butts and look at where we are with the war in Iraq. Did you ever consider that the number of holiday cards being sent out this year was at an all time high because Bush is working over time sending cards to all of the military families reassuring them that their loved ones are not going to be blown up this Christmas? How’s that for a happy holiday, merry Christmas, great Kwanzaa, joyful Hanukkah season?

So it’s that time of year again…. the holidays are around the corner and it’s time to go shopping. I’ve always enjoyed buying gifts more than receiving them. Don’t get me wrong I won’t turn away a great gift but I like seeing people happy (maybe it’s my innate need to please and thus resort to buying people’s love….). Thus I’ve decided to compile some of the most interesting gift-giving ideas that I’ve found. So, voila!

The Ponytail Palm 8-inch Bonsai Tree courtesy of Overstock.com for only $39.99. Perfect for friends or colleagues that have everything or nothing at all.

Also an Overstock.com find. What you can’t guess what this great item is? For your little athlete, a little doggie tank top so puppy can sweat to the oldies.

It’s not just one pink flamingo for your yard but 50 pink flamingos along with a 6 foot banner to announce their arrival. Who wouldn’t love to have a yard swarming with exotic birds? You can find this little treat at Surprise.com.

I had to throw in a one for the Jews (FYI: the first candle of Hanukkah is Dec. 25th). Find this funky apron and other Judea kitch at ChosenCouture.com.

Here’s a gift for the liberals out there…take out your political agression on the bop bag or sport a t-shirt of W. Both gifts can be found on Surprise.com.

Who can forget the Christmas Story leg? You know, Ralphie and his dad? C’mon… Buy this for your friends and family at Spilsbury.com.

This little baby will have you lying down and saying "Mommy?" with the father of psychoanalysis, Freud. And, as an added perk, wind up the music box inside the pillow to hear "Memories." Supplies are limited! Buy now at Baronbobgifts.com.

Ahhh… memories of Duct-Tape Man… Want to keep your wallet reinforced and safe from water? You are in need of a ducttape wallet which you can find at Uncommongoods.com (but I bet if you’re really smrt you could make this yourself!).

Don’t know what to give your niece Suzy or nephew Steve? This will be sure to be a hit with them and their parents as you teach them about the world of transsexuals with 8 cut-out drag queens and their fabulous ensembles. This holiday hit is out of print but you can buy new and used copies from Amazon.com.

Ok, that’s it for now but I’ve enjoyed this little shopping adventure so it may become a 2 part series. Feel free to email me your bizarre gift ideas and I would love to add them to my list of great holiday gifts.