Sitting in the office, slowly grading the exams I have up to this point (one half-hour remains for them to get them in to me before they are late; I have so far received five six of fourteen exams).

Here is another installment of the ongoing saga of Things I Love:

I love the idea that places like Craftster exist. That there are all these people out there, making stuff, and wanting to share that stuff, and how to make it, and what inspired them, with other people. It makes me happy. I think it's because it reassures me that there's a HUGE community of people out there who aren't satisfied to settle with the tv-n-beer mode of relaxation, or settle with the Whatever Madison Avenue Decrees Is The Thing This Year idea of stuff. And it makes the little tiny antimaterialist hippie in me happy, to think of people making stuff rather than buying it (even though they do generally buy the raw materials; still, they're one less level removed from the primordialness of STUFF that people who don't create are).

I love all the knitting and craft blogs. Even the ones I don't read. Even the ones that snark about other people - I don't necessarily love the snark, but I love the idea that people have the forum, that they have the opportunity to get stuff out and write about it. Actually, I love a lot of blogs. I love it when people have a passion and an interest and are willing to dig to find sources or information, and then offer it up to the world - it's kind of like a child, really, walking down the beach and spotting a nice shell or a pretty rock and running up to people with it, going "See? See what I found!" I love the sheer grassroots quality of it - that it's unfiltered through focus groups, that it's not been market-tested for "appeal," that it's not the sort of slicked-up lowest-common-denominator stuff that often passes for entertainment.

I love being able to make food for people. My colleague Doug said that I was "already [his] favorite person today" because I brought in both cookies and chips and dip. I'd probably come to resent cooking if it were for a passel of relatives who never thanked me and who never let me know if the stuff was any good (but always let me know when it was something they disliked). It's different when you don't HAVE to cook for people - they appreciate it more.

I love all the Christmas light displays. Even the tacky ones. Especially, in a certain respect, the tacky ones. When I look at the really overboard houses - the Chevy Chase in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" ones - they make me smile. Because they make me think of the way children are. Have you ever watched a child make a birthday card or a Christmas card or an "I love you" card for someone they really, really love? Most children (I'm excepting the precocious tastemakers here, the little Martha Stewarts or future members of the Fab Five) assume that MORE is BETTER. They heap on glitter. They use every marker in the packet. They draw rainbows and stars and hearts and footballs and all kinds of crazy things. They make it as BIG as possible and as SPANGLY as possible and as ELABORATE as possible. And I've concluded that that is, because lots of children believe that the more you love someone, the more you do for them - that one perfectly-drawn holly leaf and the words "A Merry Christmas" aren't enough to show someone you love them, that you need glitter and color and unicorns. And I feel like the people with the crazy decorated houses feel the same way - that they LOVE Christmas so much and it makes them so happy that they need to express that joy with tons and tons of lights, and plastic snowmen, and Santa on the roof, all that.