New Year's Eve is always a big deal for those of us at Purciful's Magical Toys. Both the owners of PMT are only children, and our son is also an "only" -- so most of our family is of the distant & rarely seen type. Mostly we have extended and chosen family -- brothers, sister, cousins, aunties and uncles, Nanas and Pops -- and in reality, they're all really good, supportive friends. Every year for the last 16 years, we've met at "the farm" -- the most rural home of all of us. Some years, there have been as few as 10 or 12, including various children. Other years, all the children have brought home roommates from college, boyfriends and girlfriends -- even friends from work -- there have been as many as 45 people in the house. The year one of us died of cancer, the house was overflowing. This last New Years, we realized that all our children are grown. The youngest, who was 2 when we began, is in college and preparing to become a nurse. All the rest have now grown up and finished school -- and grad school -- and law school -- and med school; some have married, and some steadfastly refuse to marry. Along the way, our group of children have expanded their numbers so that a wide variety of their friends fly in from Boston, New York, internships in California and Kansas, and from spending the December holidays with their own parents -- but they all come back to the farm for New Years Eve. Some who can't make the trip in a given year, call in to talk to everybody. This year, one of our favorite couples -- a vegetarian environmentalist and her stand-up comic better-half called in from Times Square -- and her mother that we've never met was on the phone as well. It's a fairly tame holiday as New Year's Eves go in this country. We have lots of food and a variety of drinks. Nobody among us is a big "drinker" -- so though there is always wine or beer or Bailey's Irish Cream, we're more of a green tea, cider and cocoa crowd. There's always a small bonfire -- burning off the deadwood and unwanted brush from the past year. There's a chance for each of us to cook his or her specialty -- so the menu is varied. There's always a batch of Scotch Eggs, a tray of chocolate cookies, a great marinated salad made of 5 different types of olives, cherry tomatoes, avocado chunks, and red onion slices -- with or without jalapeno slices. There's a platter of cheeses and hams -- and always a big pot of Kitchen Sink Soup. We have diabetics, vegetarians, nut allergies, and high blood pressure -- so variety is mandatory. We play games. We walk in the woods. We help feed the animals (goats, sheep, donkeys, chickens, rabbits, cows, dogs and cats.) We listen to everybody's favorite music. And we do "The Book." It's a great big leather-covered accountant's ledger. And there's not an accountant among us, so I've never been sure where it came from. Each year, a couple of hours before midnight, we all gather in the house and answer 3 questions. The first two questions are different every year -- and the last is always the same -- It's the "you have 3 wishes for this year, what are they?" Our absentee family members phone in from wherever they are and get the questions, then call back with their answers about 11:30 -- even from Times Square. In our first year, one of our questions was "what was the best thing that happened to you this year?" and we all answered, each in turn. We're a varied bunch -- and our children were all still pretty young --but imagine your closest friends answering and you're probably pretty close. When we look back an read our answers, though, the cutest of that year belonged to the baby -- at 2, she said the best thing that happened to her was her mommy and daddy kissing. We've had questions about what song lyrics mean the most to us; the thing that always makes us laugh; what someone did for us that made the most difference in our lives.... and this year, the first question was about "meliorism." I'm the one who makes up the questions and scribes all the answers into our book -- so let me define here (like I defined at the farm) what I mean by meliorism. A meliorist is someone who believes that they can change the world. So, meliorism is about individuals who change the world. We started the evening by putting a bag full of our Unemployed PHilosopher's Guild finger puppets in the middle of the coffee-table. Everybody who came through picked one -- without knowing what they would be used for later. This has a precedent -- in the past, we've taken dowel rods and paints and decorations -- and everybody has made their own magic wand -- only later to learn that one of the questions is about what kind of magic spell they would most like their wand to do. Another year, we opened the ledger on the dining table with all sorts of colored pencils, crayons, pastels and paints, and had each person draw a self portrait. Remember that variety is very important. Spice of life and all that. So once each person had a finger puppet -- Lao Tsu, Buddah, Nelson Mandella, Shakespeare, Freud, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pocahontas ,Ghandi, Charles Dickens, Joan d'Arc, Thomas Edison, Jane Austen... the first question was to describe how the person they chose changed the world -- and then explain they (the person holding the puppet) would change the world. This is based on the presupposition that meliorism is true. That we can actually have an effect on the world as individuals. Now -- I said all that to say this: In the last year, I, and many of the people at the farm (present or by long distance) on New Year's Eve have begun to make great changes in our lives in an effort to make meliorism more true, more common, and -- just -- more. Here is part of the list that applies to our house: 1.) We now only use energy saving, compact florescent light bulbs. 2.) All our small appliences (and a few big ones) are now plugged into power strips that can be turned off by a master switch. If it is true that appliences draw 30-40% of their working energy even when turned off at the switch, that means a significant cut in energy use if you just turn off the strip and thereby "unplug" the toaster, toaster oven, rice cooker, blender, and George Forman Grill in one swift move. I know -- #1 and 2 sound like a really small things -- but let me tell you that in the 13 months since we made this change, our electric bill has gone down by more than 25% -- and that's including the 2 rate hikes we had dropped in our laps. We have cut our electric bills so significantly that we can afford to fill up our cars. 3.) (and this one's a really tough one) I have stopped eating meat. Originally, I changed my diet to get control of migraine headaches back in 2003 (if you have migraines, read "Heal Your Headache" by a Johns Hopkins researcher named Buchholz.) The first change in my diet got rid of most of my headaches -- but I just lowered by intake of meat rather than eliminating it entirely. This last Sept-present has been the worst season in my life for asthma and other respiratory problems with my health. (the changing environment is taking its toll on us all....) Somewhere in all the coughing, wheezing, shortness of oxygen, and dizziness, I lost my appetite for meat. It absolutely turned my stomach to walk through the grocery store's meat section. Just the smell of washing a chicken or chopping beef was enough to send me over the edge. So I just stopped. It meant a kind of imposed boycott for my husband -- but he eats out enough to satisfy his carnivorous tooth so I don't feel so bad. I'm finally able to walk by the meat counter without going pale, but I've developed a sympathetic veterianism based on all the information out there about scandleous meat farms and the energy consumed to raise all the beef we eat in this country. I still use dairy products and eggs -- the "sustainable" side of the animal business, and at least for now I'm still eating seafood -- though the amount has fallen lately after hearing the near disasterous effects of over-fishing, farm-raising, and deep sea pollutants. The facts as known thus far seem to suggest that the planet has reached -- and passed its saturation point for supporting human life. Maybe 8 billion of us is enough. The results of #3 are widely scattered, and can best be seen as "one more drop in the ocean." Our grocery bills have decreased only slightly -- because meat sources of protein have been replaced with organic eggs/egg beaters, cream cheese, cottage cheese, soft-semisoft-hard cheese, milk, yogurt, nuts, beans, and an assortment of soy-based products (though not many, because most don't meet my taste standards.) On the other hand, my cholesterol and blood pressure have both dropped through the floor. I've lost a few pounds. I'm less "stuffed" and (eek!) blocked with all that hard to digest stuff -- so my heartburn and indigestion problems have all but disappeared. It seems that organic 2% milk is no match for hamburgers, steaks and even chicken when it comes to stacking up the cholesterol. Even chocolate milk and cocoa are reasonable if not added on top of pork chops. And decreasing my household's purchase of meat and poultry products is just one more household on the outside of the marketing/advertising push to overconsumption and overweight -- rather than buying into our dangerous American diet. ********************************************* REACH US BY EMAIL AT purcifuls@yahoo.com OR BY PHONE AT (806) 239 2927 during business hours. IF YOU DON'T GET A LIVE PERSON -- JUST KEEP TRYING! THIS TIME OF YEAR WE TAKE LOTS OF CALLS!! ********************************************************* BE SURE TO CLICK THE GLOBE ICON AND GO TO OUR FRONT PAGE FOR CURRENT SPECIAL OFFERS AND COUPONS!!! ********************************************************* FOR COMPLETE SHIPPING DETAILS (what kinds are offered, how long it takes, how to choose etc....) 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