I think my mother... made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected.
In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the 8 hours when we stop killing each other and gratutious over eating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!
There's less critical thinking going on in this country on a Main Street level - forget about the media - than ever before. We've never needed people to think more critically than now, and they've taken a big nap.