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.

Welcome To Thanksgiving

There's a lot to be thankful for...

I spent Thanksgiving this year with extended family in San Diego. It was awesome. There was plenty of food, lots of sun, and good times all around. I even got to go to Disneyland while everything was decorated for Christmas (only do this if you are okay being surrounded with more people than a Black Friday stampede) and go to my first NFL game (Chargers beat the Rams). All around a wonderful vacation with my uncle, aunt and cousins.

If there was only one thing that really stressed me out, it was getting on the planes. I was so sure I was going to get stuck somewhere over night, miss a flight or have a problem with security. Things everyone about to fly worry about. I am eternally thankful that I wasn't on the East Coast when the first snow fall of the year hit (this did not hurt my return flights). However, it looked like a lot of people had flights canceled or severely delayed due to the weather. I hope all of the people were able to get to where they wanted to go for the holiday.

There is already so much advice about traveling during the holidays that I won't go over too much about it. However, if you can, spring for first class (this was a first time for me). You get food and are garenteed to get your roller bag onto the plane if the flight is completely full. If you can't go first class (because flying is already way too expensive) see if you can get priority boarding. Flights were full and they were making people check their carry on bags.

I know, after that last paragraph I probably sound like a spoiled brat. However, it was a lot less stressful than my seven hour flight in the center row of a center row in the middle of the night back in May. And I am thankful I got to experience it once in my life. 

Actually I'm thankful for a lot of things this year. I'm thankful I have friends and family who helped me take some awesome vacations. I'm thankful I have a job and a place to live. I'm thankful I have food on the table everyday. I'm thankful for my large (and extremely crazy) family. I'm thankful for all of my friends.

Heck I have a lot to be thankful for.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, enjoyed the chaos of Black Friday, and stuffed themselves until Christmas. It's the start of the holiday season and I'm planning on making the most of it.

If you enjoyed this post please like, or leave a comment. I enjoy hearing from my readers and I hope you guys enjoy hearing from me. Maybe leave what you guys are thankful for in the comments. Until next week.

Welcome To The Holidays

They might just kill you...

So Thanksgiving has passed. I spent it with the family. We had a ton of food and I watched the parade. I always watch it with my Snoopy doll (we also watch the Charlie Brown special together). It was exciting to see the Lions beat Green Bay (first time in nine years). I guess you could say that Thanksgiving is the start of the holiday season, but then you have to remember all the holiday stuff that was out in retail in October. 

Black Friday wasn't that interesting. I remember when the stores opened at 4am and the rush to get in. Now there's hardly any point. Sure sales are there and I'll shop, but now it's just ridiculous that stores want to start Black Friday on Thursday. For one thing Friday is in the name. It also really cuts into family time, unless your idea of family time is seeing how many other Black Friday shoppers you can take out as a unit (ten points for taking out grandma). 

However, despite my distaste for the Black Friday hype, I realized how many people work on the sacred day of feasting on Turkey. I had to drop my significant other off at the train station on Thanksgiving and as soon as he jumped out of my car five minutes before departure, I realized that there were people running the transportation system to make sure everyone got home to stuff themselves silly. I thought to myself, is this a free ride home for them or are they working because they have to ( or have nothing better to do)? Several super markets were also open until the mid-afternoon. Was this also necessary. Couldn't people have remembered everything they needed the day before? Heck, my sister ran to one store twice before the dinner was in the oven.

Let also not forget about the people who work at the football games. It's freezing and they could be hearing a nice hot dinner by a crackling fire and they're out there making TV magic for the football fans. 

I am starting to think that it is a little hypocritical that people complain about workers not getting time off from major retailers for Black Friday, yet it is okay for people to catch a plain or train and watch a football game on an"American Holiday set aside for family." I think we also forget about the troops who can't be home or the news reporters letting us know what is happening in the world (or just how to cook a turkey). They also have to work on this holiday. I am not saying it is right what stores are doing, but all the hype on both sides (shoppers and angry ranters) sensationalizes the problem of greed in our country. 

I found it shocking to realize that there are a lot of people who work on Thanksgiving. It made me thankful to have a job that allowed me the time off to celebrate an odd American tradition that others find strange (I spent Thanksgiving in the UK once and they thought it was a celebration like the forth of July for us). In fact I'm thankful to have a job and a home to call my own. I am thankful to have friends and a wonderful significant other. Heck most of the time I'm thankful to just be alive and thinking and totally free to do as I please. 

I hope other people are thankful too. No matter what the future holds I am thankful for today and the day before. Now to see what the future holds.

If you enjoyed this post (or if it really pissed you off) please comment and share (either on the blog or on Facebook). Maybe I can make someone smile for a moment to two.