Well, I blew the Nablopomo thing, forgot to post something Thursday and I didn’t even realize it! But the pressure is off, which is good news for you my dear readers because my content was really stretching it. Now I can go back to only writing when I have something worth writing about.
Thanksgiving is insanely early this year, isn’t it? I think this is the earliest it’s allowed to be, in fact. So you know what that means, right? Extra Christmas time! Yay!
(I know some of you are groaning, and some of you just don’t care, because you don’t celebrate Christmas or you’re sick of the hype or whatever. You have my permission to click away, no worries!)
Thank you for staying. So, Christmas. It’s always been my favorite time of year. Since I was a child I’ve separated the “reason for the season,”, the birth of Jesus, from this thing we call Christmas which is really a secular celebration of light in the darkness that has a similar counterpart in most traditions and religions. It’s the shiny Christmas I go nuts over.
I love the lights more than anything else. As a child we’d drive home at night from visiting relatives and as my brother and sister would fall asleep I’d stay wide awake watching the lights, so December was a special treat as I’d watch the holiday decorations zoom by. I still love to drive around and see the displays. I’m not a huge fan of those giant blowup things, give me old-fashioned C9s, please (which are becoming harder and harder to find! And C9 shaped LCDs don’t count, sorry.) I still have a couple strings but we don’t even use them ourselves anymore. They still make me happy when I see them, though.
I love pulling out the boxes of decorations from the attic. I don’t have a lot of sentimental things around my house, but my tree is almost entirely covered with meaningful ornaments each year. I really need a second tree.
It’s the only time of year I really go all out making my house look nice. The rest of the year I just try to keep it clean. Clean enough, anyway. But in December I put some effort into it!
And of course there’s the music. I love Christmas music, every type. The day after Thanksgiving I go into iTunes and recheck all the songs in my Christmas smart list and put them into heavy rotation. And I haunt the net looking for a few new ones to add.
For one month each year I cave to the cheesy, the superficial, the sparkly, the bright and shiny.
