The Allume conference...and a giveaway!

My long-held dreams of attending the Allume Conference for Christian women bloggers came true. Thank you, Workplace, for funding my opportunity! It was easily one of the best conferences I've ever attended: well-organized, substantial in content, deeply spiritual, and dang, girl. That goodie bag. I will not weary you, dear readers, with a play-by-play of the conference like this is an entry on Cruisers Forum.

I will, however, share one epiphany.

Growing up as a girlchild who knew she wanted to pursue a career someday that was heavy on the interplay of words and people, I felt as though I had a limited set of female leaders. You know those she-idols doing that thing to which I aspired. There was Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, Candy Crowley, Connie Chung and a select array of other women in media who held those coveted top seats. I learned that you had to work a small market for awhile, and then perhaps get promoted to a middle market and work crazy long hours and never get to read the new Judy Blume book, and eventually, if you were perseverent, talented, and incredibly lucky, you might score a top tier post. But this was never guaranteed and you'd have to work three times harder than male peers and you best not ever have an eyelash out of place or else!

Allume reminded me that the landscape has changed. The coveted top spots for women in media aren't the only mansions on the cul-de-sac. There is a beautifully vast and seemingly borderless industry producing media in which women can creatively steer careers in whole new ways. They can be the CEO of Yahoo or the servant leader of a small cottage industry and it's all within their reach. I met so many amazing women at Allume who are girl-bossing their way in the blogosphere, running happy homes, and leaning in to Lord's unique calling on their lives. It was so encouraging, especially as a journalism professor trying to encourage young men and women to think beyond just the job offerings on mediabistro.com but to think of the lifestyle they want to lead, to envision the kind of philanthropic legacy they want to have.

To celebrate being filled-up full from Allume, I've got a little giveaway for you, dear readers. I received many a good thing at the conference, most of them priceless. Some were tactile, though, and they can be yours. Just enter the rafflecopter below and a winner will be announced on Tuesday. Woop!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Multi-cultural Monday: Holidays + Disappointments

The first in a series on multi-cultural marriage/family

It wasn't until I joined an online group of multi-cultural families that I realized I wasn't alone. The pain I was harboring over holidays in my multi-cultural marriage was not isolated. So many marriages and families, whether they identify as multi-cultural or not, struggle especially around the holidays to incorporate traditions or build new ones that bring meaning to their lives. This is my experience in mourning and reinventing the holidays in a way that works for our family.

*** I was a new bride. It was our first Christmas together with my husband's family. There wasn't a Christmas tree at my in-law's house much less a trace of holly. There wasn't anything that qualified as a Christmas cookie or really anything sweet in supply. Presents weren't a big deal, nor was having a decorative manger or singing Christmas carols or gathering with a big group of family and friends. These were the accoutrements of a holiday that I had come to love and look forward to with my own biological family, in spite of the pain of divorce and the loss of family members that had placed a strain on the holiday in the past.

We sat, my in-laws, my husband and me, on the floor of their living room on Christmas night, watching "Pirates of the Caribbean." I went to get the pint of ice cream I had bought at CVS. I served a bowl to my father-in-law. "Why I can't understand they talking?" asked my mother-in-law as she tried to follow the movie. "Because it's pirate talk," my husband explained. Why can't I understand this Christmas, I thought. I feel like pirates have jacked my white Christmas. *** My in-laws immigrated from Korea to Canada in the late 1970s. Christmas in their post-war Korea was not about decorating or consumption. It was, like the rest of life, about survival. In my in-laws' faith tradition, to which I had converted, Christmas is celebrated but not not as a "high holiday" as in other traditions. They were just happy to have their children home and to eat well and celebrate blessings.

*** I was angry, and I didn't want to feel angry at Christmas, I told my husband. As a fixer, my husband asked me what I needed. (What I needed was an attitude adjustment, plain and simple, but I wasn't ready to see that yet.) I wanted a tree and lights or just some simple marker that this was Christmas, I said.

But of course, it wasn't really about the tree. It wasn't about the cookies or lights. It wasn't about watching incomprehensible pirate movies on Christmas.

I just wanted to feel that I had not given up all of my traditions in order to be a part of this new family. 

I think a lot of us feel this way, even if our marriages/families are not cross-cultural. The totems, the traditions, the reminders of from whence we come are important to us. It's not our job to impose these on others, but we get to bring strands and sprinkles of them into our new family. It's our job to do so. Frustrating though it may be, it's not our spouse's job to know what tradition is important to maintain if we don't share this with them, explain why it matters, and be willing to help institute it.

After ten years of marriage, my husband and I start thinking about the holidays, especially Christmas, around this time so we can look forward with anticipation rather than dread. We plan activities we can do with my in-laws, we think about the presents we'll buy or the acts of service we can coordinate with our church to bring more cheer to the season. The goal is not to do a museum installation of my childhood Christmas at my in-laws' house. The goal is to incorporate threads of my traditions with new moments that bring meaning to our family time which is a big fat Korean-Irish-Italian blessing in itself.

And you? Have you blended your childhood traditions with new ones in your marriage/family?

Is it too late to run for President?

With the Democratic Party debate tonight, I'm wondering if it's too late to toss my hat into the ring.

My candidacy represents a bridging of generations between Generation X, Y, Z and the digital natives. I offer a regional blend of Mid-western pronunciations, a regular bandying about of the New England modifier "wicked," and an abiding comfort with the Southern contraction "y'all." I was raised super Catholic but converted to Protestantism. So I've got a few sacraments under my belt, will happily place my hand on "a stack of Bibles," and have plenty of Muslim, atheist, and rabbinical pals. I'm married to a Canadian-Korean, so you can trust the White House would be the raddest melting pot full of kimchi potato stew you could imagine.I'll be running on the following platform:

- To adopt the Spanish siesta as a nationwide habit

- To eradicate the use of apostrophes when trying to pluralize words - To retain the separation of church and state but to promote single stream recycling programs - To promote the use of the handy can of Spray Starch you reach for when a burglar enters your home as the only legal weapon

- To enact Stevie Wonder's birthday as a national holiday for Motown-inspired song and for just calling to say I love you. - To require all schools to have hypoallergenic therapy dogs, especially for the teaching staff - To enact an exorbitant tax on abusers of handicapped parking spaces and drivers who hog the passing lane while talking on their phones - To require 300 hours of community service for anyone who mistreats school crossing guards, the elderly, the physically or mentally disabled, and the homeless - To incentivize millennials to have face-to-face conversations - To encourage more United States of Awesomeness