Welcome to Early Holiday Cheer

Thanks, I hate it.

Yesterday marked the first instance of me hearing a Christmas song on the radio. Couple that with the unexpected snow storm on Thursday (or not so unexpected if anyone in the east coast had been paying attention to the forecast) and I am already done with this whole holly jolly season. People were putting up their Christmas lights while taking down their Halloween decorations for pete’s sake!

Am I salty about this?

Maybe.

Am I thoroughly annoyed?

Most definitely.

It’s the same every year, Halloween ends and Christmas takes over. Thanksgiving has turned into the holiday to get ready to shop for Christmas. Black Friday isn’t any fun anymore when store open on 4:00pm Thanksgiving Day.

Granted it’s still a lot of fun to watch people fighting over the latest trending toy when their four year old is probably more interested in the box anyway.

I'm just kind of done with the early holiday celebrations. I may love Halloween, but I don't want my pumpkin spice latte in August...it's too hot for a latte in August anyway. It's like we're trying to make up for the lack of major holidays in the last three months of the year.

Sure there's Valentine's Day, Easter, May Day (if your city celebrates it), St. Patrick's Day is fun, and there's always a ton of stuff going on for Independence Day, but do we as Americans really celebrate those holidays the same way we do Christmas?

No...though I'd make an argument for Halloween.

What draws us to the Christmas holiday season?

It's not like everyone in our country even celebrates Christmas. There's Hanukkah or Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, and Festivus (for the rest of us) that are also celebrated in December. Some families even celebrate more than one holiday.

But we're not inundated with Festivus songs and movies. It's Christmas. We don't get Yule ads. It's Christmas.

Not to mention it's all so dang happy!

I don't mean to be a Scrooge or a Grinch, but can't we enjoy Thanksgiving without hearing the dreaded ballad that is The Christmas Shoes. I beg of the Universe - not the song A Christmas Shoes!

I actually do like Christmas songs...though I prefer the religious ones to the more secular pleas to Santa. I like seeing the holiday lights, especially if there's snow on the ground. I like buying gifts for my family and giving to the people who might not have as much as me. I like the flavors. I like the feasts.

I have a lot of fond memories of Christmas.

Which might be what everyone is trying to invoke.

As a child Christmas and the holiday season was exciting and magical. Anything was possible because of a baby being born and a jolly man dressed in red leaving us gifts under an evergreen tree. A mean nasty man could have his icy heart melted to become the best of us.

Christmas and the holiday season now isn't as magical. In fact, I'm more apt to fall into a depression than I am to feel cheerful or happy at this time of year. Instead of feeling strongly connected to my loved ones, I feel disconnected and set adrift. My emotional needs are no longer simple, but more complex than ever.

And I'm not alone in these feelings. Lots of people experience holiday or winter blues.

I sometimes think it would help me if the world outside my personal bubble was a little less holiday crazy. No Christmas music before December 1st. Keep the decorations down until Black Friday. Less focus on shopping and more time spent volunteering.

So to everyone who has their holiday cheer ready the day after Halloween.

Thanks...I hate it.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to an Engaged Populace

Happy Veterans Day. I hope everyone had the time today to remember what our veterans fought and died for.

If you've been on any social media site in the past few weeks, you've probably been inundated with dozens upon dozens upon millions of tweets, posts, and shares about the US Midterm elections. I've honestly never seen this much interest in an election that didn't include casting a ballot for the president.

It was wonderful.

Politics and the government, whether we want them to or not, influences our lives in ways we don't even think about. Certainly everyone is aware of the laws meant to keep us safe and the stress that comes with paying taxes, but so much of what happens in our lives is determined by government policy. Health codes and regulations: implemented by the government. Equal protection under the law: overseen by the government. The reason you can't use firearms to fish in Wyoming? It's likely that someone in the government was trying to stop someone else from getting killed because of their unique brand of stupid.

Knowing and understanding how the government affects our lives is a lot more important than some people think. I've spoken with some people and they've told me how they're uninterested or feel they are too uninformed for politics.

It saddens me that people don't always take the time to utilize their freedom to vote. Not everyone in the world has this right. There are so many people who lack the power to help decide the direction of their country's future.

Voting is a unique type of power that I am grateful to have.

During the 2008 election year, I was still in high school. It was a presidential election year, so the media was in a frenzy and talked of little else. I couldn't vote, but I was incredibly well informed on what was going on.

One day, right before election day, my math teacher started class a little differently. Like quite a few of my other high school teachers, he had served in the military before going into teaching. He looked at all of us and I remember him telling us (though my friends might have different memories) that the most important thing we could do as citizens of the United States was to use our right to vote.

That year the United States elected their first African American president.

Despite my teacher's lesson, I didn't start using my right to vote until 2012. My university tried to increase engagement in the politics. October through early November always had plenty of pamphlets on the dining hall tables detailing what was going to be on the ballot in our area. Our newspaper would put out a special edition on the candidate. Even one of the professors ran (and won) for mayor of our city.

It wasn't that I was disinterested in politics (I'm from DC - we're surrounded by it from the day we're born). I just had a lot of other things to do that got in my way of going out to the polls. I also didn't realize how important local elections were.

Since 2012, I have made it my mission to vote in as many elections as I can (this includes primaries). I make sure I know where my polling place is, what times it's open, and how easy it is for me to get to. I send out texts to my family to remind them that it's election day.

Still a number of people I would talk to would tell me that they hadn't even realized it was election day. Some would shrug their shoulders and tell me that it didn't really matter all that much.

It wasn't until this year that things felt different.

Usually midterm elections are treated as an interesting blip on people's radar that fades into the background of other, more pressing matters. Presidential elections are the ones everyone really cares about.

Not this year.

This year, everyone was talking about them.

Turn out was huge. People of my generation, who are notorious for not voting in midterm elections, turned out in droves. Absentee and early voting was at it's highest. Lines were long and people arranged to carpool to polls.

I sent out texts to my family as per usual and so many of the responses I got back were: have you voted yet? Even more wonderful, two of those texts came from younger cousins who had to send in absentee ballots because they go out of state schools.

I'm proud of the people in my country. I'm proud that people my age are aware of how important their right to vote is. I'm proud that we're paying attention to what the people lead us are doing.

But with the good, there comes the bad.

Despite the success in getting people out to vote, there were plenty of reports of horror stories. As I stated earlier lines were long. I hadn't had to wait at my polling station for anything since 2012 (I waited over an hour to vote in that election), but I did this year. There were issues with the polling machines malfunctioning. I heard reports of people being told to go to the wrong polling stations.

And the less said about the situation in Georgia the better.

Our system isn't prefect, but we can work together to keep improving. Having a voice in politics and being able to vote is such a wonderful opportunity. It puts the power of our future into our own two hands. We get to have a voice in how our country is run.

I am incredibly grateful for that.

Thank you America for getting out and voting last Tuesday.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Haunting Horror

Happy belated Halloween! Did you guys have a spooky time? I was suffering from some extreme jet lag as I had spent the past week exploring the Pacific Northwestern region of the United States. Then I decided to take the red-eye home. The only thing scary about my day was the lack of sleep.

When was the last time you felt scared?

The feeling doesn't have to be because of something major. I feel scared for many reasons, some of them even silly. Fear, horror, and terror are all associated with feeling scared. I tend to find myself terrified of some social situations (none I will specify here) or when one of my cousins decides to take a mountain pass road on the side of a cliff...in the rain (“it’s only 8 miles” my foot).

Fear is subjective.

As a child I was always fearful of mysterious monsters in my closet or under my bed. I would build a wall of stuffed animals to keep vampires and ghosts away. Don’t even get me started on zombies. I can’t stand zombies even to today (if only they weren’t a real probability of occurring right?).

Did someone say monsters?

It took a long time for me to be able to watch or read horror stories. There are some stories I still won’t watch (mainly of the torture/slasher variety). I don’t like blood and gore at all. Even in college I wouldn’t watch the show Supernatural after a certain time.

Except things started to change.

It was a slow process. I was always aware of stranger danger, but it wasn’t as big of a reality until I moved away from my friends and family. The idea that I could fail didn’t seem as scary until I was responsible for providing for myself. The future always seemed bright and shiny until I realized there was very little I could do to control it.

My fears went from imaginary monsters to intangible realities. I can’t punch a fear that doesn’t have a physical form.

I also started embracing more of the horror genre as a way to deal with my own nightmares. Slowly at first with kids shows and cheesy movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I became drawn to the beautiful side of horror. Gothic sets with ominous lighting and music scores that could draw out every emotion the characters felt. I really liked horror video games with their intricate stories and emerging the player as both the protagonist and omnipresent observer. Fatal Frame and The Haunting Grounds are two great titles that pull this off.

Now, it’s become a lot harder to horrify me with movies, books, and even video games. It’s not that I’ve seen it all or that I know the genre too well. It’s more that a lot of horror mediums these days rely on cheap scares to jolt their audience into an adrenaline rush.

The type of horror I’m drawn to is subtle. It isn’t a sudden jump scare or loud “boo” to the face. It’s seductive, able to draw their victim in to a beautiful trap that leaves them shaking for days after wondering when the next bout of terror will come. It’s a horror that stalks its prey long after the prey has escaped.

A great example of this horror done well is the new Netflix original The Haunting of Hill House. I was surprised by how off putting and truly terrifying the mini series was. The very few jump scares were on point and not cheap thrills.

The new Suspiria movie that just came out is an equally terrifying experience (though I wasn't so keen on the Epilogue portion of the movie). Much like 2018's The Haunting of Hill House, this remake of the 1977 classic takes things in a completely new direction while keeping the bar bones of the original. It's a slow burn horror movie that draws the viewer in and isn't shy about being upfront with the supernatural aspects of the movie.

However, these examples might not be seen as scary or engaging enough for everyone.

The thing about horror is that its incredibly subjective. A movie like the 2017 It doesn't scare me for a couple of reasons: 1) I'm not scared of clowns, 2) I know that there's a whole other part because I watched the original 1990s miniseries, and 3) the imagery that's supposed to shock me - doesn't. That doesn't mean there weren't a few good scares in the movie. I definitely jumped when I first saw the headless boy following Ben and the scene with Pennywise coming out of the projector was creepy as all get out. I still enjoyed the movie, I just wasn't scared by it.

I may find it creepy, but it's not scary.

As my taste in horror media changed, so too did the things that scared me. I'm no longer scared of ghosts or witches or vampires. Now I'm scared of things that are a lot more abstract and less straight forward to fight back against. I'm scared of the a future I can't predict. I'm scared of hypothetical situations that I can neither control nor account for. I'm afraid of isolation and being forgotten about.

People have different fears, anxieties, and feelings. What one person finds scary another finds invigorating. Some people like being scared, others hate it with every fiber of their body. Fears morph and change as your life does the same.

Just remember one thing: whatever your scared of, no matter how mundane - it's okay to feel that fear.

Just try not to let those fears take over your life.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.