Life has been busy!

I haven't been able to Blog in awhile. I couldn't believe this fall. I counted how many presentations I've given since the first of the year, and it's 24, most of them in other cities and one was in Malta. Besides that, I've published 2 articles and 2 book book chapters, with 2 more book chapters at the publishers now. All of this, besides my daily work. No wonder I've neglected my Blog and also Wordcraft.

Finally I have a few days off and am enjoying just doing errands, if you can believe it. And thinking a bit (about something other than work). The holidays are coming. I love Thanksgiving and can't wait to host my family. I go all out! But then there's Christmas. Being Jewish around Christmas in the U.S. is not easy. Everyone assumes you're Christian. Just yesterday at my job they were planning a "Christmas dinner" and then we were going to sing Christmas carols. The dinner would be fine...but carols? Really? Should I sing "Dreidel, Dreidle, Dreidle; I made it out of clay"? I was planning to just skip the dinner, but a colleague said something like "what about people who don't celebrate Christmas?" The planners didn't like it, but they decided to give up on the singing. I of course said nothing, not wanting to be a wet blanket. I can hardly blame them really, but they also don't get it. For us, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are our high holidays. But that definitely isn't considered. We have meetings and conferences during that time. Heck, we even had a major meeting during Passover one year.

For those who are interested in the e-word, here is a link to a site that came up in my Google Alerts.