Welcome to the 2022 Homestretch

Is anyone else slightly confused by the sudden appearance of holiday decorations and music? Why is it so dark in the early evening? Weren’t we just enjoying warm weather and sun?

Me at midnight on New Years Eve

Okay, that last question may be climate change since the temperature in my area keeps fluctuating between mid 70s and low 50s (low 20s to about 10C). And don’t even get me started on the sudden changes in humidity. My poor body is so confused.

However, I will admit that the next few weeks will go by fast.

Much faster than any of us probably want them to.

2022 is almost over. We have less than two months to squeeze the last bit of our resolutions out of it. The year of the tiger will soon morph into a cute fluffy rabbit. We’ll be another year older and hopefully wiser. My free time is booking up fast.

I enjoy the last few months of the year. Some of the best tasting food is made between September (apple cider donuts), October (pumpkin spice and everything nice), November (anyone want more stuffing?), and December (I really shouldn’t have another cookie, but I know I totally will). I love fall and winter spice blends and scents. There’s usually a fire going in my fireplace in cool autumn nights and snowy winter days. Tea and hot chocolate keep me warm. My cat is cuddlier than usual.

The last few months of the year are decorated with twinkling lights and spooky images. Families (blood and found) come together to celebrate each other. Friends get together in ugly sweaters, while coworkers learn who can and can’t handle their drinks.

It all goes by in a blink.

I mean we’re technically already half way through the Holidays (depending on when you start). And I do mean Holidays - plural - because there are a lot. Starting in September, there’s Rosh Hashanah and the equinox. October started with Yom Kippur, followed by Diwali, and wrapped up with Halloween. In November we observe Veterans Day and Thanksgiving (at least in the States - Canada’s is in October) - shame Election Day doesn’t quite count. Finally, there’s all the events in December such as Hanukkah, Yule/the Winter Solstice, Christmas, Kwanza, New Years Eve, and Festivus for the rest of us (as long as that’s the only thing to come from Seinfeld).

Parties are planned from September to January. Many people take off work and travel (if they have the privilege and financial means to). There’s a reason the famous song “There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays” mentions the traffic (seriously never ever travel the day before Thanksgiving).

If you don’t hear from me much the next two months, it’s because time has no meaning until January.

Have a happy and safe holiday season. Despite the crazy black hole time suck that blind sides us this time of year, I hope you and I can take a moment to slow down and appreciate the good food, fun company, and pretty decorations.

Until the next post.

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 y’all like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Last Post in 2021

 I know a lot of people are thinking it, but when did 2020 become 2021...and how did 2021 pass by so quickly?

This will be my last post in 2021. I spent part of the year without a job, started traveling again, and have continued to worry about COVID (despite the vaccine).

This holiday season is a little different than last year. Though COVID is always at the back of my mind, being vaccinated has given me a little freedom. 

Last weekend I went to a local production of the Nutcracker with a friend. Most of the audience was made of the dancers' family and friends. I (being determined to see any production of the ballet live) really enjoyed myself. Some of the dancers were absolutely tiny and positively adorable. All of the dancers were fantastic. 

I am happy to encourage anyone who has a local theater group or community center to check out any productions they may be putting on. Not only are they fun, but they support your area's artists, dancers, actors, and talent. I'm actually kind of sad I missed a local production of the Dracula ballet (there are actually several versions of the Dracula ballet which can be found on YouTube). 

This weekend, I had a couple of friends over for my first holiday bunch! 

It was so much fun and I may have gone a little overboard while cooking (there are tons of leftovers). The Wassail I made was a particularly big hit, as was the pumpkin cake and mocktail I came up with on the spot (a scoop of cranberry relish, some pomegranates, and pomegranate bubbly water in Champaign glasses - the full thing will be in my food blog). Christmas music played in the background (okay it was the Nutcracker) and I had a roaring fire in the fireplace. Lights are strung up all over and my tiny tree is fully trimmed. 

Yesterday, I spent the whole day cooking and cleaning my apartment. I found the cleaning therapeutic and helped me feel like I was sweeping out the old year. I even took time to wrap up all the presents. It's hard to believe Christmas is in less than a week and New Years is in less than two. 

Over the next couple weeks, things will be quiet. The only major event I'll be attending is a driver through light display. I went last year with my dad and it was the only request he had this year to do during the season. Maybe I'll also take a day trip into DC to see the train display at the outdoor botanical gardens and the Congressional ("People's") tree.

2021 was a long year that somehow felt very short. It was eventful and at the same time very boring. My hope is for some peace and stability. Though I hope to travel again soon, I'd much rather know that people are safe and my cat can curl up on my head whenever she feels like it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. May you all have a nice rest, a little peace, and lots of fun memories. 

Good bye 2021.

Welcome 2022. 

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

Welcome to December 2021

All I did was blink and suddenly it’s the end of 2021. 

As we are in the middle of the holiday season, I hope all of my readers (yes that includes you) are doing well. It’s the second year we face spending the season with the shadow of the pandemic hovering over us. 

Very random snowmen decorations along a wooded path near my home.

2021 has been a hard year…and it seems to keep getting harder. 

My greatest wish this holiday season is for a period of stability and peace in my life - something I haven’t really had since the end of 2018. Things have been rough. I thought 2020 would be the worst, but I took a (figurative) beating in 2021. I don’t even want to speculate about 2022.

My hope is that the season brings a little more kindness, especially to those in need. That we are all able to celebrate the good things and don’t dwell on the negative. May joy and love be spread.

Some of us get “blue” at this time of year. I tend to be one of those people. It could be because it’s dark outside and I get less vitamin D, it could be the forced upon cheer from every angle, or it could be perhaps that my shoes are too tight.

Don’t worry, I’m not planning on stealing Christmas or Hanukkah. 

Times have been hard and it’s not clear when they’ll get easier (or if they’ll ever get easier). What I can do for me is to be kinder to myself. The same can go for you. If you haven’t put up any decorations yet, that’s okay. I didn’t get my tree up until today (and some of my decorations have already fallen from where I hung them up yesterday).

If you can get out of your house or apartment, do so. I’m still going on daily walks and making plans for outings that will cheer me up. I’ve found a community performance of the Nutcracker to go to with a friend and a holiday lights show to drive through. These things are small, but they give me something to look forward to.

2021 has felt like an extension to 2020. So much has happened and the pandemic feels never ending. Money is tight, the job market weird (yes that’s the word I’m choosing), and politics (at least in the US) are driving me insane.

Maybe a little holiday season is what we all need.

Remember to check in with yourself. Sometimes small things are just as grand as big ones. Give yourself things to look forward to. And be kind.

Until next week.

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

Welcome to the Holiday Season with COVID

 Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. Despite my stubborn vow to never travel during Thanksgiving after a disastrous incident with my flights in 2014, I often find myself scrambling to make travel arrangements for the winter holidays. 

I hate am not very fond of it.

Maybe I'll find some flying reindeer to help me out.

Don't get me wrong. I love traveling and have no problem getting on a plane, train, or bus any other time of year. It's just the period between mid-November and the first weekend in January that sets my teeth on edge. 

And if I am going to travel, I'm going to do my best to make sure its by car. I have a lot more freedom that way.

This year has really thrown a wrench in my usual holiday plans. COVID is no joke and there has been a serious uptick in cases in recent weeks. Though I understand that my risk of having complications - if I catch the disease - are minimal, that doesn't mean I don't worry. Especially because I do check in on people who could be devastated by COVID.

Though I have really wanted to, I haven't gotten on a plane since February (for a work trip) and I don't plan on getting on a plane any time soon (unless there's an unavoidable work trip). There are so many places (mainly Maine and Arizona to visit my cousins) that I have wanted to go to. I'm going crazy being stuck in Northern Virginia, even if there are a lot of things to do. I'm a wanderer. I need to wander.

Already airlines are starting to see an uptick in travel plans, though not nearly to the point they would be any other year. People have been away from home and their families for a long time. The time between Thanksgiving and New Years is a major family gathering time in the United States. There's even a Christmas Song dedicated to this annual migration ("Oh There's No Place Like Home For the Holidays").

If you can, stay home this year. Plan a small(er) celebration. Create some new traditions. Maybe have a celebration on Zoom or Skype. 

If you can't...please stay as safe as you can. Most hotels are doing a fantastic job social distancing and cleaning. Restaurants in my area are fanatical about cleanliness and mask wearing. 

And I'm not saying that you shouldn't visit or welcome family who want to see you. Two of my aunts just came down from Michigan to visit me and we had a lovely time. Before they came, they made sure they didn't have COVID and took a lot of precautions while driving down. They didn't fly.

Telling you guys not to travel would be hypocritical of me (especially since I've already mentioned that I was in a wedding about a month ago).

COVID is serious. The unrest in some major cities over the results of the election are serious. Your mental health and wellbeing are serious.

Any travel you plan, plan it carefully and safely. Wear masks, carry hand sanitizer, travel by car instead of plane or train, and pack lots of snacks. Your family will want to see you next year and the year after that too.

Happy Start of the Holidays everyone!

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 y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Holidays All Around

Today is the last day of LGBTQ+ month. I hope everyone had a wonderful Pride Month. I only manged to get into New York City once this month, but I saw tons of rainbow flags and welcoming signs. I even managed to locate a nice cafe with a Pride Flag right on the corner of Gay St.

June wasn't just LGBTQ+ Pride Month. There were a few other whole month celebrations going on. Some are internationally recognized, but others are country specific:

• African-American Music Appreciation Month
• ALS Awareness Month (Canada)
• Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month (USA)
• LGBT Pride Month
• National Safety Month
• National Smile Month (United Kingdom, May and June)

Tomorrow begins every child's favorite month long celebration (if they know about it) National Ice Cream Month. I probably won't be celebrating - mostly because I can't eat ice cream - but it sounds like a great month for children on summer holiday.

However, don't just have month long celebrations. There are a few days set aside to celebrate any number of reasons. 

Most of us in the United States are familiar with the bank holidays (days where people with 9-5 jobs get a day off and schools and banks are closed). Days such as Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Labor Day, and Veterans Day. The next big one is coming up this week: Independence Day!

Then there are the religious and/or cultural holidays we learn through society, such as Christmas, Eid al-Fitr, Hanukkah, Halloween (Samhain), and Easter. We might not get a day off of school (with the exception of Christmas) or celebrate all of them, but most people in the United States at least know about them. 

By the way National Grinch Day (Grinch-mass) is December 1st

And of course there are the religious / memorial days which have been absorbed and slightly altered by our culture. These would be the Valentine's Days (a saint's day that's turned into a day all about love), St. Patrick's Days (another saint's day that's become a reason to celebrate the Irish heritage in America), and Cinco De Mayo (this isn't Mexican Independence Day, but it has been embraced as a day to celebrate Mexican heritage in America - when not stereotyped by drunk white people).

The Wiccan / Witch holiday of the Autumn Equinox

Then there are the just plain holidays for the sake of celebration. 

For example, while I was celebrating the summer solstice last weekend, my friend wished me a Happy National Onion Ring Day and Global Smurfs Day (I refuse to open the can of worms as to how people celebrate that one). Today happens to be International Asteroid Day and World Social Media Day (why? just why?). Again I don't plan on celebrating either of these events, but it is interesting and occasionally fun to know.

My personal favorites of these types of celebratory days are Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sep 19th), Star Wars Day (also known as May the 4th), Star Trek Day (Sep 8th), and Pi Day (March 14th). Pi Day in particular holds a special place in my heart because my math classes used to have huge parties with lots of different pie to eat. 

Pretty much if you can think of something to celebrate, there's likely already a day or month dedicated to it. When I was a kid, I was jealous that there was a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, but no Kids Day. There actually is. It's June 19th. The holiday just hasn't been embraced yet by those of us in the United States. 

More recently International Women's Day has been making waves. However, according to my European friends, it's actually celebrated in Europe rather than just acknowledged as a day. Women are often given flowers (or flower crowns...I'm not actually clear) in her home country of Hungry.

This, of course, prompted people to start asking why there wasn't an International Men's Day. Except that there is. If these people had done a quick Google search instead of griping about it on social media, they would know that it's November 19th. 

But let's be real, they didn't care about International Men's Day until International Women's Day became "a thing". 

So the next time you want a reason to celebrate something, check out what holidays are going on that day. There are several websites dedicating keeping up with this information including: nationaltoday.com/ and checkiday.com.

And if you run into someone complaining about how someone has an entire month to celebrate something, but the veterans only have one day. Feel free to let them know that if they actually cared about veterans, they'd know that May is National Military Appreciation Month - which includes celebrating veterans. 

Happy End of Pride Month my friends!

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.

See you guys in two weeks.

Welcome to Tis the Quiet Season

Tis the season for people and parties galore, that by the end of it all it might feel like a chore. I'm not one for many major social events. I prefer to sit by the tree with a hot drink, wrapping presents.

I'll visit with friends on a few weekends. I love to see everyone and never want for fun. It's just sometimes it gets overwhelming and I need to find a quiet dwelling. Thankfully my family likes to spend our holiday together, curled up inside because of the cold weather.

On Christmas mourning we wake up slowly. Enjoy breakfast, then presents, and finally a nap - nice and cozy. The dogs are happy for a few good pets. Even the cat is as pleased as she gets.

Later, as the sun goes down, the whole family likes to gather round. We might watch a movie or read a few books while waiting for Christmas dinner to cook. It's perfect and quiet and just right for us (plus it's great no one is around to raise a huge fuss). Though we do fight the dogs for a space next to the roaring fire in the fireplace.

It's beautiful at night with all the holiday lights. They twinkle and glow, standing out against the ever growing snow. We might drive around to the many displays, to see the whole world look ablaze.

After dinner we clean up and get ready for bed - happy to think of the New Year ahead.

Christmas is a grand occasion. One that everyone has a different celebration. Going to parties is tons of fun and holiday events are second to none. But I'm happiest to be with those I love most, even when we aren't physically close.

And as I watch the snow gently fall, I feel as though there's peace on Earth and good will for all.

Merry Christmas to my may many readers. I hope you enjoyed this post's rhyming features. And let's all give a great big cheer for a Happy New Year!

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

I'll probably post again before New Years, but next week I'm off. Safe travels everyone!

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 Preparing for the Holidays

The entire last quarter of the year should be called the Mad Holiday Rush. It all starts in October (or August depending on stores near you) when Halloween decorations are everywhere. Suddenly all of the food is pumpkin flavor and Hocus Pocus is on TV every weekend.

Thanksgiving is neatly smushed between Halloween and New Years. For the most part this holiday is dedicated to stuffing yourself silly and having three weeks worth of leftovers in your freezer. The most stressful parts of Thanksgiving are buying all the food, cooking all the food, and hoping no one brings up politics at the dinner table (hard to do after a couple of glasses of wine).

There are a lot of holidays in December, but I think everyone can agree that the one Americans are obsessed with the most is Christmas. Heck we get to start listening to Christmas music even before Thanksgiving on the radio and there are so many other holidays at this time of year too (my favorite being the winter solstice).

Granted Christmas is a lot of fun if you celebrate it. You might get to see loved ones you haven't in a while. There are beautiful light displays to go look at. There's a nostalgic feeling like anything can happen during this holiday. Magic seems to be real.

Of course here's a lot that goes into preparing for Christmas (so much so that it makes the holiday last through the whole month). There are presents to buy, decorations to put out, a montage video of the entire process to put on Facebook. You need to get that prefect tree (real or fake) that will fit just right in your living room. Mine is up, I just haven't bothered to put the ornaments on yet.

Having a check list is nice to have. That way I don't forget anything (or anyone). It's probably best to start a check list early (like a few months early), that way when December rolls around getting everything done will be a breeze. I try to get all my Christmas shopping done well before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but it's okay to snag some last minute deals (so long as everything arrives on time).  I sometimes pick up a few things right after Christmas to save for next year.

Holiday card writing and present wrapping can take a while too. I like to start soon after Thanksgiving to give myself plenty of time to find all of the presents (I'm pretty good at misplacing hiding things).

There's also the mental and emotional prep that comes with the season. For some people this is the first time in a whole year or longer that you'll be seeing your family. It might be heartwarming and joyous. It could also be a total disaster (especially if politics and drinking are mixed).

Some people get really sad during this time of year. Holiday depression is a real thing with tons of articles on the internet about it. It can be difficult be around all the festivities when feeling down.

The holidays can be very overwhelming too. There's a lot going on and being around a lot of people can be draining (especially for introverts and people who like the quiet). I like to have a space set up where I can retreat to if I'm feeling like things are getting too much. There's nothing wrong with excusing yourself from a party or celebration if down time is needed.

I hope everyone has a peaceful holiday season because December has only just started and already things are busy.

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 Keeping Records

Today I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It's a cool movie, though the ending wasn't what I was hoping for. I'm excited to see where this series goes. I would definitely recommend the movie for Harry Potter fans and non-Harry Potter fans alike. It definitely felt like the movie was building up to something bigger in the long run.

Thanksgiving has come and gone (along with Black Friday). The winter holidays are fast approaching, which means Christmas music will be inescapable for the next month in the US. There are tons of holidays between now and the 1st of January. There's also still a lot of work to get done before the new year.

The holidays really tie up the phone lines sometimes.

While I was visiting my dad for Thanksgiving, he gave me one of my grandmother's journals from the 1950s to read. It's a day to day travel journal about their journey from Pennsylvania to Japan. My grandfather worked for Church World Services and was asked to go to Japan for them. I'm not sure of all the details, but this was the first trip of many for my dad's family.

I will admit, reading my grandmother's journals is a little difficult. They are written in cursive and occasionally the pen bleeds through the page.

She does, however keep a very strict log of the day's activities, including when they woke up in the morning and what they ate at each meal. She always includes the location and what the weather is like. I might have picked up on a few of these habits.

This is the first journal of many. I think my dad hopes that someday I'll compile them all into a book to publish. They are fascinating to read. So far I've managed to discover that my grandmother was very worried that the trip would spoil her children rotten.

I keep a personal journal and a travel journal. My current travel journal includes my recent trip to Iceland as well as two other trips I took nearly ten years ago. It's interesting to go back and read some of the things I have written. It seems that I like to include silly things in my travel journal (like what I was listening to on the airplane).

My personal journal is just that, personal. My first journal was from when I was in high school. It mostly contains silly drawings and poetry (really really bad poetry that is very much a product of the 2000s decade). My second journal is a log of my journey through college. There is a third journal floating around somewhere that is incomplete. Who knows if I'll ever find it again (its from a summer between Junior and Senior year of college).

My most recent journal was given to me by a friend for Christmas two years ago. Sadly it's almost completely filled and I'll need to get a new one soon.

I've talked with a few people who have also kept journals and diaries. We all agree that it's nice to write things out. One of my friends reread a journal they started in the early 2000s. They wrote a lot about the changes that were happening in the world and how it was effecting them (especially 9/11).

For a long time even the presidents kept personal journals. Many are held in the Library of Congress to be preserved. Through these personal journals, people are able to catch a glimpse at the day to day lives they and their families lived. It helps add a different perspective to events that were happening at those times, especially since we don't have audio and video recordings for us to view.

I would like to encourage everyone to keep a personal journal. Even in this day of blogs and social media, having something to record your thoughts private thoughts in might be benificial. Sure, nothing on the internet ever really goes away, but there's so much stuff on here that things can get a bit lost. Who knows, someone might really want to use your journals in the future for a book.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. 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.

Welcome to Fresh Picked Apples and Pumpkin Spice

Fall official starts next week guys! Who's excited? I know I am. Fall is my favorite time of year. There are bright colors everywhere, so many delicious things to eat, and of course Halloween! It's both nostalgic and a look towards the future.

It might drive me a little crazy how early somethings for fall start going up. Walk into any store that sells beer in August and you'll find an entire wall dedicated to the pumpkin beers (not that I should complain, so many different flavors). I started seeing ads for Halloween decorations in July. And pumpkin spice lattes are inescapable by Memorial Day weekend. It can be a bit of an overload.

So many different types of food in different shades of red and yellow.

Some days I want to stand on a corner handing out pumpkin flavored food. "And you get a pumpkin spice latte! And you get a pumpkin bread! Everybody gets pumpkin flavored things!"

It's amazing how we as a society have hyped up these fall foods and flavors. Sure all things Christmas are also inescapable (even before Thanksgiving) for a solid two months. I may occasionally want to bang my head against something when I hear the Christmas Shoes song one too many times.

Then it all suddenly ends. Banished into our attic spaces and closet storage until it is socially acceptable the next year to pull them out (roughly two months in advance of the actual holiday).

It's not that I don't think the celebration should go on forever, but sometimes the hype for the holiday detracts from the actual day for me. By the time I'm ready to celebrate, it's over.

I also might be a little guilty of celebrating too early. Making the first pot of pumpkin flavored coffee is always a treat and I love getting my first butternut squash of the season. Sleepy Hallow and Practical Magic are back on Netflix. I dig out all of the Vincent Price movies I can find. Suddenly ghosts and goblins are just as real as Santa Claus.

Maybe I like celebrating early because it seems so short. The time it takes the leaves to change their colors and fall to the ground isn't very long. The weather in the Mid Atlantic that allows the prefect balance of not too hot and not too cold seems to last even shorter.

Life is short and the things we enjoy in life can be even shorter. We all live busy lives that don't allow a lot of time to enjoy the things we love most. Maybe that's why we need Halloween and Christmas to last for nearly two months each (with a small detour for Thanksgiving in the US). It's to find that one moment where we can enjoy what we love most, even if it's not quite the right date.

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. I'm off to eat some fresh made apple sauce (my first attempt, hope it's good).

Until next week.