Today's Date: December 3rd
Days Until Christmas: 22
The other day I was complaining to Will about how how I wasn't a big fan of Christmas songs because the only versions that get played are always just the same Mariah Carey covers that get played on the radio a million times over and start to get annoying after the first two dozen times, but then, I found this video. And I had to use this video because it is actually PERFECT. I think the song itself is pretty cute (despite the fact that it is, indeed, Mariah Carey) and the video makes me smile. I was going to go the Grinch route but the love and joy expressed in this video are honestly much more reflective of how I feel about the holiday season.
Also, I don't consider this NSFW at all, but it might get awkward if your parents are in the room and your computer screen is large so you have been warned. ^^
Christmas has always been incredibly important to me, but not always for the same reason. When I was really little it was the pure excitement-- baking cookies with my mom or grandma and worrying about scaring off Santa (I'm not joking, I actually woke up early in the morning when I was 4 or so and walked with my eyes closed to the bathroom so I wouldn't see Santa and scare him away-- and no, I'm really not sure why my toddler-self thought seeing Santa would startle him and cause jolly ol' Saint Nick to flee). As I grew up, it was definitely about the presents for a while; I recall one year where my grandparents gave me a fair amount (at the time) of money for Christmas and I was actually able to go to the store and buy the newest Mario Party (3!!) for myself. HYPE. As Santa's appearances became more obviously phony (one year instead of addressing one of the packages as "From: Santa" my grandma put "From: Harry Potter"... it was a Harry Potter action figure), I began to lose interest in the holiday itself. I regained a bit of interest through decorating, which I still love, but it took me a while to figure out what made Christmas significant to me.
Now, Christmas is about family, love, and home.
Let's start with family. Yes, of course I mean my parents and pets, but to me family is a lot more than that. Family isn't limited to people I have blood relations/pacts with. There's my boyfriend, there are my best friends from my home town, and there's my SS family. One of the best things about Christmas as a young person is, of course, Winter Break. And to me, one of my favorite things about Winter Break (aside from getting to sleep in and bake lots ehehe) is getting to spend time with my family. I think we get so busy with school, work, video games, and so many other things that we don't always get to spend as much time with our family as we'd like to, regardless of what family means to you.
I don't want to go too ooey gooey with the love part, we can save that for the Valentine's Day Countdown 2k15™. But honestly, the whole month of December has a lot of love in it for me. What could be more love-filled than enjoying good food and vacation time with people who mean the world to you, after all? I truly love and cherish my friends so much, and when it gets into the Holiday season I go super sappy all-of-my-friends-and-family-are-the-friggin-best mode. It hasn't always been this way (I was a very very negative person for a long time), but for the past couple years I've begun to feel sincerely thankful for all of the good fortune I've had. It's really easy to only notice all the bad stuff, so sometimes it can be nice to try and appreciate all of the love in your life, if only for a while.
Finally, I just wanted to talk a little about what home means. There's always so much talk about going home for the holidays!, but I feel like home has always been a weird concept to me. I think a lot of us grew up being taught directly or indirectly that your house = your home and/or the extremely vague "home is where the heart is." In all honesty, I'm not a massive fan of either of these concepts. I think you can be in your own house without feeling at home (I know that growing up I felt very little attachment to our apartment but a significantly stronger attachment to my school and grandparents' house). And in terms of "home is where the heart is," I think it's on the right track but it's such a weird phrase that doesn't really get to heart (ha!) of what home is to me. To me, home is safety. Home is comfort; home is love; home is where your family is. I honestly feel more at home on the Internet than I feel at college sometimes, which is probably why I spend so much online nowadays. I mean, it is the closest I can get to my best friend/ person I love most in the world. </sappy stuff>
To wrap things up, I hope every one of you has a really wonderful holiday season. Stay safe, stay close to those whom you hold dear, and try to give yourself a little time to relax (seriously, you deserve it).
Thank you all so much for listening to me ramble on. Y'all are pretty dang wonderful. Merry Christmas! (in 22 days)~