Posted in blogging on 12/30/2007 03:01 pm by Grace
Christmas is over and time for me again to change the current theme for this blog. You don’t want to be seeing this blog dressed in Christmas all throughout the year, right?
There are thousands of themes free available for blogs using the WordPress platform (the self-hosted ones using not blogs with wordpress.com extensions). But I always wished for a custom made blog design that’s exclusively mine. On the average, it costs around $80 - $200 depending on the complexity of the design. But guess what, I have found a great giveaway of a blog design at Little Fun; Little Learning via my friend Kailani’s column, 5 Minutes Around The Blogosphere at 5 Minutes for Mom. Thanks Kailani!
A custom made blog design at RS designs valued at $100 will be given away! If you want to be included in the pot when the winner is drawn, go check Little Fun;Little Learning for details. It’s so easy to enter!
Posted in personal thoughts on 12/30/2007 09:09 am by Grace
The holidays, specially Christmas is the time of giving, so the popular saying goes. I have been asked so many times during Christmas by relatives and even random neighbors back in my home town, “Where’s my gift?”, like I am obligated to give them every year just because I live and work abroad.
When I was still a student in Japan, I look forward to coming home every December for Christmas but whenever I go out, random neighbors whom I don’t even know (they only know either my father or mother) would ask me Christmas gifts and they pout if I just stare at them blankly and call me Scrooge. So I rarely go out of the house, afraid to bump on to people who have faulty eye sights and see me as the fat man in red suit shouting ho, ho, ho.
Looking back, I had long become Santa every year. I gave out things and gifts to my family, never expecting anything in return. On Christmas this year, just a few days ago, some relatives called and grumpily asked for their Christmas presents. I answered differently this time, “How about mine?”
“But you have everything already!”, came the expected reply.
I don’t know what made them think I have everything. If I have, then I would not be working 6 days a week. I would be home wrapping presents for them.
A simple Christmas card or email greeting or the cheaper SMS would have made me happy. A gift does not necessarily mean expensive or bought or wrapped. It’s the thought that counts.
