Why I Thank the Scrooges in My Life

Though I was raised by Scrooges and have a Bah-Humbug spouse, I refuse to succumb to holiday depression. Every year I experience a kind of seasonal euphoria that certainly isn't due to childhood traditions. My parents only reluctantly engaged in celebrations "for the children" -- all the while expressing distaste for the commercialism and bitterness over memories of Depression-era privations. Then, as atheists, they debunked the Nativity story. Perhaps I was a changeling child, because I still bustled around singing Christmas carols, making decorations from construction paper, and tuning the TV to seasonal specials. As an adult, I am the champion of the holiday spirit in my home. My Indian husband was raised in a Hindu household without Western traditions. He spends his Xmas complaining about the expense and the bland seasonal food he has to choke down. Yet every year, I happily decorate a tree, send seasonal cards, cook traditional fare, and play holiday music that no one else listens to. I welcome my children and relatives who can visit, and send my love to those who must be absent. I remember the faces that I have not seen in many years because of distance and death. I count my blessings and give more to charities. And I thank the Scrooges. They forced me to cultivate a personal meaning for the holidays that has nothing to do with religious orientation or retail hype or transient circumstances. As Scrooge's nephew explained to him in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I embrace the season "as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" Happy Holidays to all.

Why Do We Binge on Holiday Shopping?

Every year I swear off excess holiday shopping, and then I walk into a mall and binge. A Psychology Today article explains why I am so easily seduced into this shopaholic state. Consider the seasonal red-and-green color scheme used by many retailers: Red stimulates and energizes--even our spending. Studies show that waitresses wearing red get 14% to 26% higher tips than waitresses wearing other colors, for example. Add green, an optimistic color associated with wealth (ah, happy thoughts), and I'm eager to spend. Meanwhile, merchants drench the air with holiday scents wired directly to emotions and memories. Pine scent especially evokes feelings of happiness and nostalgia, according to studies. And while I'm in the mood, other stores pipe holiday music into my ears to hype nostalgia further. Research shows that nostalgia elevates positive mood, creates a sense of emotional connection, and inspires a rosy view of the past--so I want to revive childhood's holiday magic with my dollars. Then I just have to touch a soft cashmere sweater on a display table, and I'm standing in line to purchase, because studies find that we’re significantly more likely to buy what we touch. That's why retailers design stores with merchandise roadblocks. Since we’re naturally drawn toward the center of a display, stores put pricier items there, with the second-best placement just to the right of center where the right-handed majority will likely touch first. Even the frustrations--jammed parking lots, shoving crowds, and a race against time--work against sober shopping. Anxiety interferes with rational decision-making, psychologists warn. So is the answer to just shop online? If only I could, but every holiday I end up at the mall at least once--and face temptation. So here's my New Year's resolution: I'll just say no to red-and-green, pine-scented, "dreaming of a white Christmas," warm and fuzzy, anxiety-spurred retail traps next year. For now, I'll ruefully wrap an overabundance of gifts. For more on the pyschology of holiday shopping, see http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-why-behind-the-buy/201212/is-your-brain-holiday-shopping

My Offer to the Book Club Circuit

I would love to see more book clubs put my mystery Lies Agreed Upon on their 2014 agendas, and I can be available in person for Southern California group discussions--and perhaps even meetings in other areas--if given enough notice. I admit I am still perfecting my book club presentation. I have developed suggested discussion questions, of course, but the book groups I have attended want to know more; they are interested in the creative process. I have found myself talking about plotting and character development, background research, editing and rewriting, word choice and writing style, time management and writer's block. But I sensed I was omitting a key ingredient of creative writing. I realized after a recent book group meeting that I needed to do better at sharing the "magic" as well as the mechanics of writing. By that I mean those serendipitous events--a random memory, a TV news story, a phone conversation, a chance encounter in a shopping mall--that inspire an "aha" moment and a new plot twist or a new character or even a whole new story. There were plenty of those as I wrote my novel. I assume that my mind, focused on an imaginary world, tended to strain and re-purpose real-world input to fit the fiction. But it felt much more exciting than that. It was as if the universe purposely delivered insight, illuminating truth with a beam of light from on high or from deep inside, but definitely from somewhere beyond conscious control. As Harry Potter's creator J.K. Rowling has said, “There's nothing better when something comes and hits you and you think 'YES'!” For me, fiction writing relies as much on that occasional epiphany as it does on steady wordsmithing--and I promise to share more of those "YES" moments if invited to speak with your book group. Download suggested discussion questions at http://authorkatherinesharma.com/discussion-questions-1.html

Traditional Feasts Serve Up Food's Emotional Power

Busy prepping for Thanksgiving Day's shared feasting, I began to think about the role food plays in our lives and our literature. There's no denying that food generates some of our most evocative memories of emotions, places, and people. Few other experiences can match eating for both cultural uniqueness and universality. Numerous old saws equate food and love (the way to a man's heart, of course). Why? In The Omnivorous Mind, John Allen has written a whole book about the evolving human relationship with food. Nearly all cultures engage in feasting to commemorate past or seasonal events with an abundance of food. The practice probably began about 1 million or 2 million years ago, posits Allen, when humans began hunting really big animals, like mammoths, and needed to share temporary excesses of food so that it would not go to waste. When agriculture developed, humans added harvest feasts--which led to our own Thanksgiving tradition. But our relationship with food is more than historical; somewhere along our evolutionary path, we developed the special wiring that makes food so central to human social and emotional life. For one thing, Allen points out, the digestive system produces hormones like insulin, leptin and ghrelin that act on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays a key role in memory; thus, we tend to remember food events, and a certain food can trigger vivid recall of people, settings and feelings. The brain's dopamine system, which rewards us with feelings of pleasure, also becomes active when people look at a favorite food--or someone they love. In our brains, food really is linked to love. To get ready for the feasts still ahead, you may want to sample food's emotional resonance in stories such as Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen, and A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. And you can check out Allen's book at http://www.amazon.com/The-Omnivorous-Mind-Evolving-Relationship-ebook/dp/B008533FSI