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Happy 2011!

Hopefully everyone has enjoyed the holiday season thus far. The holidays can be a time filled with opportunities for creativity and a time we could all use to celebrate peace and understanding, no matter what our individual beliefs! I’ve been disappointed when I noticed on New Years Day that many decorations were gone. Some who hurriedly put up decorations after Thanksgiving, have now rushed to turn off or take down their Christmas and Holiday decorations, even though many of us are still celebrating the Christmas season. I guess the unity of the Christmas spirit fades fast for some. I find it sad, especially for those of the Orthodox faith who will be celebrating Christmas in January, because the spirit of Holiday songs on the radio and public and retail areas filled with festive decorations are removed before they even get a chance to celebrate their holiday.

All thoughts have now turned to resolutions and the New Year, fueled by retail and marketing promotions for organizing your home and getting in shape. As a designer I can respect a great deal of unique and inspiring ideas that come from creative marketing and ads. But this market that drives us to remove festive celebrations and forces us into a cycle of predictable buying mentality, pushes me to encourage everyone to strive for creativity and understanding in the New Year.

Find a creative New Years resolution for 2011. Take up photography and get your exercise on walks looking for the perfect outdoor nature shot or interesting indoor architectural scene. Encourage your family to recycle by creating collaged storage boxes from materials in your own home. Discover your genealogy by visiting local museums and libraries to uncover documents from your families past, creating organized family records as you go. (Perhaps you’ll discover you too have a family line that used to celebrate the holidays up to the Epiphany.) Money you planned to spend on expensive equipment and services, can instead be invested in the arts and community organizations that spread creative ideas such as these and encourage unity throughout the year.


* Photo "CPL - Reading Angel" by Janet Pahlau

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