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If you think the OUTSIDE of our house is filled with Christmas cheer, just wait until you see the INside. 
My parents thought of me when they were going through my grandmother’s belongings and they found this boot.
Christmas is just in every direction you see in our house at the moment.
Ain’t it purdy?
These are the gumdrop lights from Target. LOVE them.
It’s a little blurry, but you surely get the idea. Hunter wants you to know he wishes you a Merry Christmas, too. And I want you to overlook the extension cords. Tacky, tacky.
Yay! Pretty!
You can see Hunter’s Advent Calendar here. And a reflection of the Christmas tree. Yes, Hunter has an Advent Calendar. You’re hung up on that, right?
The banister is bedecked with Santa figurines, Santa ornaments, polar bear Christmas lights, a garland, and red and white Christmas lights. I love the way this room looks right now. So cozy and festive! Just don’t look at those tacky extension cords, ‘kay?
If you were spying on Santa, this would be one potential area to spy. The tree is not, after all, near the fireplace. So we give Santa a little bit of exercise? What’s it’s gonna hurt?
And thus concludes the tour of the downstairs Christmas Land. Hope you’ve enjoyed yourself! There are more photographs besides these, but lest you think we are really over the top with our love of Christmas decorations, I will spare you. I will point out that the chandelier in the den is decorated, but you can’t see it very well. And there is a mistletoe ball hanging from a ceiling globe on the way into the kitchen in the picture that has Hunter in it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and your loved ones!!
I just joined in a huge tradition at the school where I work. Every Christmas, on Thursday night and Friday morning assembly, the high school chorus and orchestra – with their new best friends from the faculty, staff, and returned alumni – perform selections from Handel’s Messiah.
It’s a lot of fun, and this year, I was able to sing with girls that I know because I’ve coached them and/or know them from church. Kinda made me miss choral singing.
It was fun, even though it was hot onstage under those lights. A few girls on the front row passed out during a long stretch. Poor girls – I am happy to report they are okay!
It definitely put me into a great mood! Here’s a funny contribution from the Peanuts:
I am sure I will write before Christmas, but I hope you have a Merry one!
Just to celebrate the way glass looks when it comes out of Chihuly’s workshop, because it makes me so happy:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
OOOOOOOOhhhhhhhh
WWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWwwwwwwww
Enjoy!
I’ll take pictures for our inside decorations, too, but for now, heeeeeeeeeeeere’s the outside!
And at night, the top story disappears! Magic!
I can take maybe – and this is stretching it – 1% of the credit. 99% (and then some) of the planning, execution, and meticulous care credit goes to Josef! Good job, sweetie!
I have seen this verbal attempt in real life before, so I am totally in love with this adorable Hallmark commercial!
For new year’s or just because, I’ve decided a few things:
1. I am addicted to this blog. Even if there are only 7 readers.
2. I keep using pictures and artwork from people I don’t know (giving them credit, of course!). Maybe I should start doing my own illustrations and uploading them and using them in my posts. Lots of other people trust the internets to their artwork. I want to start doing that on a frequent basis.
3. Maybe I can then sell said illustrations on etsy. What a neat site! Maybe there are other things I could make to sell there. Head on over, if you haven’t before, to find all kinds of wonderful handmade items!
4. I love Octave. I do. But I need something more. I hope to find a band to do backup vocals with. Maybe that will be my New Year’s goal, but I might look into before the new year begins. There was a guy who approached Octave a while back but we all told him no, individually. Maybe he still needs someone. Or maybe I will finally get into a play.
5. I am really ready to pursue my teaching goal. I might start circulating my resume before the holidays, but I need to wait for the man at school who is helping me to review my resume and transcript.
Okay, thanks for reading as I sort out my life. Hope you enjoyed the video! Maybe my goals will gain clarity as this little boy’s speech eventually will. For now, I will treat my ideas like my own children, with the sweet tenderness of a mother who is working tenaciously to develop them!
This morning, I had a dream that I was supposed to be leaving in an hour to go to Europe. I think I was actually babysitting so that impeded my ability to pack. I tried to pack, as Josef repeatedly asked me to do, but as is typical of me in real life, I had a million things on my minds and had things that I needed to take care of.
Someone had set out some suitcases that were clearly meant for little kids, as they were tiny, flimsey, and excessively colorful; and I got mad because I wanted to take one big suitcase and a backpack. The only backpacks I could find were the kind our teachers have here to carry their laptop tablets around with them.
I decided to pack anyway, even though my luggage wasn’t appropriate, and in went all these fancy dresses I wanted to wear (most of which don’t exist in my wardrobe!) and I couldn’t find the shoes that went with them.
Then, of course, I was suddenly in a candy store. It was really nice, spacious, and well-lit. It might have been a crafts shop, too. It was a bit like a cute There were some cute kids shopping with their parents, including this cute little boy who kept running around and checking to see if I was still watching him.
I left the store and it was raining outside. I ran in it and it fell harder and harder. I met Josef at the car and he was mad that I still hadn’t finished packing.
Then I woke up. Tired as can be.
Luckily, we ARE going to Europe in the spring so I don’t have to be depressed about that not being true in real life! And I am quite relieved that I will likely have plenty of time to pack before we go AND use the luggage I want to use!
After reading a book with a socially awkward main character and witnessing the behavior of a young man that I know who is, unfortunately, really socially awkward, I just had to write about this topic.
Basically, having become socially awkward once I hit puberty, and eventually working my way out of it, I get frustrated seeing socially awkward people struggle.
In Jane Hamilton’s novel, The Book of Ruth, the narator, Ruth, struggles the entire length of the novel with her utter lack of social skills. While she wants to appear smart and beautiful, she instead beats up her brilliant older brother and eeks through school as a wallflower to the nth degree. Also, her internal monologue and her dream life she relayed to her beloved Aunt Sid in her letters indicate to the reader that she is not who she appears to be at all from what others see when they interact with her. Squelching her ability to live in her true nature is a condescending mother.It’s painful to witness scenario after scenario of Ruth not living to her full potential. Over time, however, she comes to some startling realizations, one of which I will paraphrase. She realizes that because dead people can’t express their feelings for others, because she is alive, she must do just that. Of course, in Ruth’s case, making the realization did not entirely make her spring into action.
It’s important to take the time to consider what’s inside of ourselves and whether or not the world can see it. I own a piece of that statement: I, too, was an awkward kid. I knew it, too, but I felt like I couldn’t take any ownership over it. It’s just how it was for me. It was my normal. I passively accepted that that’s how I was. I dreamed about having interesting things to say to people to make them want to hang out with me. I spent too much time evaluating myself against what I didn’t realize was my own arbitrarily-derived evaluation meter. I missed the point so many times, resulting in further drawing in on myself.
Luckily for my own situation, things have changed tremendously. I don’t say that so we can all sigh in relief. What I want to do with my change is to help others.
As I mentioned, I know a young man who is very withdrawn around his peers. I don’t want to give too much away because I’m trying to protect his privacy. He always arrives late to the gathering in the context in which we know him. He’s already mad about that when he arrives. He’s lovely once he opens up, sharing tales about his family and their pets. His soft voice indicates a gentle nature, but he’s also readily able to almost brutally chastise himself when he perceives he’s done something wrong. The other boys his age, whose disposition is to be cruel to someone else in order to elevate their own statuses within the group, are quick to poke fun at him. He just doesn’t know how to relate to others, period. If you ask him a question, he gushes with paragraphs of things that he wants to share. He doesn’t, however, look you in the eye, nor does he ask you anything about yourself. I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t care for others – I am sure he cares deeply, as Ruth’s character does, and as I experienced when I didn’t know how to talk to others – he just lacks the know-how to engage in conversation with others.
There’s a cycle in which this awkwardness becomes normal. I thought that I was fine the way I was, but I assumed the world was flawed AND it was out to get me. I knew my innermost being and knew I was worth something. I just couldn’t figure out why others couldn’t see it. Instead, I chose to believe that people were stuck up or weren’t worth my time. I hated popular people because I believed they were up to something deceitful. I hated people who treated people nicely and then talked about them behind their backs. I labeled them as fakes and avoided them.
So what are steps that socially awkward people can take to come out of their shells? What can I do, now that I “get it” to help those that I see struggling with this disorder – which of course is what it is AND it has a lot of “friends” that come along for the ride, like depression, etc. It’s like you are driving the car – A.K.A., your life – but your buddy Socially Awkward has blindfolded you and pretends to care how to tell you to drive, and meanwhile, SA tells you that Depression and Anxiety need a ride to the store, so they sit there – classic backseat drivers – and tell you all kinds of lies about your driving abilities. Why drive impaired? Kick this crowd of losers to the curb!
I think there are several steps, that I can see from my experience, to working out our way of this disorder.
1. Taking an active role in your own life. Hold yourself accountable for anything you want to achieve. Stop blaming others for how you are.
2. Turn outward. Focus all that energy you’ve been using to evaluate yourself to, in essence, get over yourself. You won’t learn about yourself if you look in a mirror. You learn about yourself by interacting with others.
3. Believe with all your heart that you are of value. Think about the talents you can give to the world. Got time? Use it. Got a talent? Show it. Got money? Share it.
4. Be optimistic that you can and will change, for the better.
It takes times. Years, actually. Luckily living life requires that we wake up each day to face the world. We make a series of choices about how to spend our time, talent, and resources, and though we may not receive instant gratification, all goodness that we send out will return to us. I’ve seen it happen, time and time again.
I wish I could help this young man I’ve written about. I certainly should give it a shot. I feel for him as I am sure he thinks that the way things are for him is what is normal. I would love for him to know there’s so much more to life than dwelling on how other people treat you and constantly misinterpretting how they are treating you. It’s great to be able to reach out to others now that I have the eyes to see it from this refreshing perspective.
Have you seen this video?
It basically sums up, in a visual display I don’t have the time to recreate, and with a stronger and more concrete argument than I can currently formulate, why I am not doing much shopping this year for Christmas. Josef keeps asking what I want for Christmas, and I’ve only come up with one thing: an apron for when I cook. But, I could totally live without it.
A few years ago, when anyone asked what I would like for Christmas, I said I’d like for them to do something nice and then tell me about it. But then, I’d find myself hitting the stores in a futile effort to find the perfect gifts for everyone I loved. I always go overboard shopping for Josef because I love him so much, I can’t help it! Josef’s provided a list for me again this year, and I’ll probably get him some of the items on it, but besides him and our brood of nieces and nephews, everyone else is getting a charitable contribution in his or her name from me this Christmas.
I’m actually really excited about this because this is more in line with how I want to live: giving from the heart and REALLY helping others. Last year we did this a little bit, but now it will be for a wider circle of loved ones. And, in this recession, charitable organizations need our money more than ever.
I think we’re going to give to Heifer, Unicef, Salvation Army, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Agape Center. There are many, many other wonderful organizations to which I’d love to donate, but I want to donate to the places that mean the most to my loved ones. I’ve noticed a lot of local stores, including Publix and even Ann Taylor, make giving easy with meal bags and the option to add a monetary donation to a charity to your purchase. I think this is smart, efficient, and good as it’s optional.
I like to think of this form of giving as “turning out.” In several groups I’ve been in, such as Westminster Fellowship at Presbyterian College, we ended our time together by standing in a circle and linking arms. We started by putting out left arms out and moving it toward the person on the right. Then, we put right arms out and toward the person to our left and grabbed the hand on each side. We stood there, right arm over left arm, so that when you turn out, still holding hands, everyone is able to still hold hands as they face out of the circle.
I feel like if I put my money where my mouth is, I can make much more of a difference in this world that needs me so badly to look up from the sales rack. Instead of turning inward on ourselves, or even turning inward and focusing only on our loved ones all the time, if we turn out, we take all the goodness within ourselves and bless the world with it.
Who’s Martti Ahtisaari? He’s the former Finnish president, and he has just been announced at this year’s recipient for the Nobel Peace Prize.
To quote the CNN article on the points with which I concur:
- “We cannot go on, year after year, simply pretending to do something to help the situation in the Middle East. We must also get results.”
- “Peace is a question of will. Wars and conflicts are not inevitable,” he said, arguing that they are caused by people who have something to gain from them. “All conflicts can be settled.”
Let
There
Be
Peace
On
Earth
Thank you for your work, Martti Ahtisaari.
Jestering went well last night! I think I get more into it every year.
Two things I tend to forget about until I am actually jestering that I should remember next year (if I go for round 5!):
1. I jingle with every move I make. Every. Move.
2. I need to learn some medieval jokes.
I danced around with that silly (and heavy) boar’s head before everyone got there. Did I mention it was heavy? Heavier than I recall it being? And, thank goodness, it is now candle-less. It used to be surrounded by ten votives with tealight candles in them. And I danced with fire. Apparently, last year the banquet table got a little burned where I set down the Boar’s Head, due to some fake ivy dangling down into the Boar’s Head candles. Whoops! I am not so sure the head was as secure as it normally is, so I had to compensate for that, too, with my dance. Fortunately, I didn’t drop it and I didn’t pass out from lifting the tray over my head as I danced. It’s a mercifully short song.
No update on the house lights. It rained plus Josef got home later last night. It is quite dark at the moment and we’re under a tornado watch. Come to think of it, it does look a little, um, green outside. Ugh. It was cold enough to snow two days ago, and now we have a potential for tornadic activity. Wow, the south always has weather to talk about!
And, my latest addiction? The Shiba Inu Web Cam. So cute! At the time I write, it’s not on air, but it should be soon. There were 6 puppies originally at this breeder, but now there are 3. And they are so cute to watch! Makes me want to get a web cam so I can watch Hunter from work.
