The warm light of a Christmas tree(my random Christmas musings and why I like my tree up in November)

There is nothing that is more Christmas to me than a Christmas tree.

No two family's Christmas trees are exactly alike. They are a unique representation of that family, their story, and the love they share. But to me, every tree is beautiful.

For my tree I prefer colored lights, not white. We have ornaments on our tree that my parents have had since before I was born and others we just added this year and of course every year in between. Some of our ornaments are just pretty ornaments that we liked and others have much deeper meanings. We've always used tinsel. The tinsel we are using now is blue. I chose it and I chose the blue because well...I love blue. But I love that it's not the typical color you see on a tree. Most of the time if someone is going to use tinsel it is red or green or most often white. We bought a new tree last year. It's pre-lit with both little lights and bigger lights. The big lights are what I fell in love with on this tree. Little lights are great but the big lights stand out and when I look at them I feel warm. I also love that this tree is tall. At 7.5 feet it's the tallest tree we've ever had. We put candy canes on our tree. I know most people don't anymore but we still do. I love all the different flavors of candy canes.  This year we have regular peppermint, red hot flavor(I think that's what it was anyway), and the cherry with the blue, yellow, and red strips. We have an angel on top but we've had mostly stars in the past. I love our tree this year. I think it's a good combination of whimsical and nostalgic and magical and yet mature and beautiful.  Up until the last few years we'd always waited until the day after Thanksgiving to put up our Christmas decorations. But the last few years my Mom and I have been putting it up early. I just want to enjoy it for as long as I can.

My favorite thing to do when it comes to the tree is to turn the lights off at night and sit in the floor in it's glow and soak it in. There is just nothing in this world like the warm sweet glow of a room lit only by Christmas tree lights.

 I've done this a couple of times already this season. I feel such a range of emotions. It's like A Christmas Carol. I think of  Christmas's past, Christmas this year, and future Christmas's.

As a child Christmas was always a big deal in my house. I have so many wonderful memories of those Christmases! I remember going back to school after Thanksgiving break to all the Christmas decorations and doing Christmas plays and doing Christmas arts and crafts. All the anticipation of Christmas break. I remember the excitement of when we started singing Christmas hymns at church. I remember driving around looking at Christmas lights as it got closer to Christmas. They used to put up a huge display at the city lake here and we'd go through it over and over. They stopped for several years but this year they are doing it again and I feel like I'm 8 again anxiously awaiting the chance to go through it again! I still watch the same Christmas movies we watched back then, I've just added a few.  I remember going to my grandma's for Christmas and how excited I was to see her. She always made the best pies! I could go on and on but you get the picture.

As I got older and met my ex, I started going to his family's on Christmas Eve. He and I would take a night and go shopping for our families before then. Both of those things had become tradition for me. This will be the first time in 15 years I have no second family and no Christmas Eve plans and there won't be any Christmas shopping with him. There is part of me that feels a little relief. I can stay home and help mom finish up last minute things for our Christmas. But I can't lie there's a big part of me that feels sad. For 15 years these people were my family and in the blink of an eye they aren't. If any of you are reading this(which frankly is doubtful) I just want you to know I cherish those Christmas Eve memories. Thank you for including me and making me feel welcome. I may not cross your mind on Christmas Eve but I'll be thinking of you guys!

As I lay in front of the tree last night it occurred to me that this holiday season will be different than any other. This will be the first time as an adult that I will be single for the Holidays. My little circle is considerably smaller. It's time to find my own Christmas traditions. I have always loved the Holidays and this year will be no different. I can't wait to shop for my nephews and spoil them. That's the best part of Christmas for me now. It's been quite a year for me and there's been a lot of heartache, so I think I need Christmas more this year then ever and I plan to soak it all in as much as I can. I'm already enjoying our decorations and the movies and music! I think a little it of Christmas is just what my beat up bruised heart needs.

As I lay in front of my Christmas tree I also found myself thinking about future Christmas's. My nephews are getting older and it won't be long until they understand it all and they can really look forward to it and enjoy it, I can't wait for that. I hope to make my own traditions with them. I wonder will I ever see another Christmas that I get to spend with someone special? Will I ever have kids to enjoy Christmas with? The reality is I can't control those things right now, I can only soak in this Christmas and this Christmas alone. But it doesn't stop me from wondering what the future Holidays will look like.

We live in a world with so much ugly in it and I see it seeping into Christmas. Maybe it's just because I'm an adult but I see so many people losing the magic of Christmas. I see for so many that Christmas is just passing thought. They put up a few decorations a week before Christmas and take them down the day after and they never take a moment to sit and really enjoy it. I see people griping about people putting up Christmas stuff too early(both individuals and stores).  I see and hear more people all the time saying things like "I'm just not that into Christmas".  I wonder if they've really taken the time to make Christmas their own. I wonder if these people's problem is truly with Christmas and with it bleeding into Thanksgiving or is the problem within themselves and with how they allow things and themselves to get in the holiday season. I understand for some people for many reasons it's just not a happy time. But I think for some it's not a happy time because they don't really take the time to enjoy the little things or to really soak in the beauty of the season. I hear talk about "too much consumerism" and blah blah blah. In my home, that isn't how it is and I'd never let the way other people are about Christmas ruin it for me or mine. I guess it's just not something I can relate to and it just makes me sad to see other people feel so negatively about something that makes me feel so wonderful. I feel like I want it to last longer and longer and everyone else is trying to shove it into a couple of weeks and want it to be done and over with faster and faster every year. I guess I should be used to looking at things differently than everyone else 😂!

But as I sat in front of my Christmas tree last night I found myself thinking I hope I never lose the desire to put my Christmas stuff up on November 1st and to leave it up well past January 1st. I hope I never reach a point where I utter the words "I'm just not that into Christmas".  I hope I never reach a point where the magic of Christmas doesn't leave me feeling intoxicated and warm and peaceful. I hope I never reach a point where my desire for Christmas is quenched and I don't want anymore.  Because Christmas is about love and joy and peace, and is the last little bit of childhood magic you get to hold on to. Losing that would just be the such a sad thing for me. Those things make me feel alive and grateful and hopeful and they make me appreciate the people around me and all the good things in my life that much more.  People always say "Thanksgiving first" and if that's how they choose to celebrate that's fine. But for me without the love, peace, hope and magic of the entire season there is nothing to be thankful for. They don't feel separate to me and celebrating them separately feels wrong to me. The things I'm thankful for are the very same things I'm celebrating and enjoying at Christmas. For me it's all connected and I could just never separate them. It's a time of year that only comes around once a year and I truly hope I never lose the desire to extend it further and soak in it more.

In my book, it's never too early for Christmas. It's never too early to turn everything off and sit in the dark in front of a Christmas tree and enjoy the beauty of it. No, to me it's never too early or too late to soak in the warmth of a beautifully lit warm Christmas tree. It's always the absolute perfect time! It's not about when you put it up, it's the love you enjoy around it. It's the moments you spend really soaking it in. It's the memories you make. This life is far too short to put off making memories and enjoying simple things like the magic and beauty of Christmas!

So if you don't already do it, once your tree is up don't forget to switch off the light and sit quietly in it's glow.  I don't think you'll ever look at your tree or the magic of Christmas or the way it all makes you feel the same way if you do!

"What if I fall? Oh but my darling what if you fly?"

Once again I've stopped writing. I've opened up a new entry over and over and over and over and closed it without finishing it ever single time.There is so much on my mind but most of it I feel like wouldn't be at all interesting to anyone else. But also I feel like I've published enough negative blogs this year and I need to publish something positive and right now I am struggling to do that. 

Writing for me is a way to express myself and process things. I don't really have friends that I feel I can turn to and vent to and discuss things with. I have a couple of people I'm sure would be happy to listen and let me vent but I'd feel like a burden if I did.  So I write. But I am not a light switch. I can't just flip a switch in my brain and decide for the next 45 minutes or an hour or whatever I'm going to write a happy positive bubbly warm blog and if I try I feel I don't really write something that fulfills me or that I am proud to publish. But I get self conscious about how negative and ungrateful and sad and selfish and downright awful I sound.

In the past, I've tried to keep the negative stuff to my personal journal. But again I feel the most fulfilled and like my best writing happens when I am 100% authentic and real about how I'm feeling.  So what ends up happening is my most fulfilling best writing is in my personal journal and my blog gets something that doesn't feel true to me. It get something that feels like filler to me. It's not there because it's real or I want it to be there, it's there because I want to keep writing my blog but I'm worried about how what others will think of me. There are a couple of blogs that I've seriously thought about deleting because they feel so fake to me.  As you would imagine writing that way is not only completely unfulfilling but it's so much more work and so not fun and so so exhausting. So as I've done in the last couple of months...I just don't do it. 

I love to write. I've loved it for a very long time. Being an introvert and having social anxiety makes expressing myself verbally very hard. But when I write it just pours from my fingers with ease. In recent weeks, I've felt strongly this is my passion and this is what I want to do with my life. What will that look like? I have no idea.

I think I've always known that was where my passion lies. But I've always felt like that it was a nice idea but not something I could ever do. I start thinking about it and all I can think is "I'm not that good, my spelling is terrible, my grammar is terrible, my punctuation is terrible. That would be a complete disaster and I'd be a complete and total failure!" and yet it's what I always come back to.

I also find myself thinking that I've been sure of so many other career options before I walked away from them and this probably won't be any different.

The reality is though that is what I feel about everything that I'm interested in doing. I'm really struggling with negative thoughts about myself about my future about my worth about my abilities...about everything.

But on the other hand I know if I don't go down this road and at least try, I'll never know what could be. I just hope I have the strength and courage  to actually commit to this and do it. I just keep telling myself if I fail, at least it'll be time spent doing something I love.

I also tell myself I've fallen a lot in 30 years and I should be used it 😉!

My love for music and P!nk

I started to share this on a Facebook post of the 60 Minutes Australia interview with P!nk but I got 3 paragraphs in and realized it would be better as a blog lol. Not that anybody reads either one but hey I enjoy writing :).

So I've discussed my interests on here a lot. One I haven't gotten into as much is music. I've always loved music as long as I can remember. As a young child it was mostly Christian music. That was basically all that was played in my family. But as I got old enough to branch out and find my own likes and dislikes, I fell in love with Country music. The first two were probably Shania Twain and Garth Brooks. I can remember my friends and I belting out "Man I Feel Like a Woman" by Shania Twain and "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks all the time lol. From about the time I was 9 or 10 on, my interest in music just blossomed. About that time 90s boys bands like Backstreet Boys, N'SYNC, 98 Degrees...ect were becoming very popular and I loved them. Michael Jackson was also a favorite then for me(then and now). There were lots of others but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.

At the end of Middle School/beginning of high school, the muscian that is my favorite, who I look up to, who inspires me the most, whose music I always relate to came on the screen. That was of course P!nk.

I hear other people talking about their favorite musicians and they say things like "I remember where I was and what I was doing when first heard their music and what song it was and it made me feel blah blah blah". Well I could make up some cute story about the first time I heard P!nk's music but it would be a complete lie lol.

I feel like she's always been there for some reason. I think initially I liked her and her music because she was everything I'm not. I know that sounds crazy but it's the truth.

I struggled a lot high school trying to find some place I belonged. I experienced it a little bit in middle school but high school I think was worse as far as that went.  I always felt like the odd man out. I always felt like the person who always stood out and yet also the one everyone forgot about(think Mia Thermopolis on Princess Diaries except not quite as nerdy lol) .

I was in band but not really a band nerd anymore. I was in theatre and loved it but I was not really your typical theatre kid either. I'd say I fit in the best in there but I wouldn't say it was a perfect fit. I think I just loved theatre and the people in there so much I just forced it to work for me LOL.  I was good in school but not super super smart. I wasn't popular or a prep. I wasn't an athlete. I sure wasn't cheerleader material lol. I wasn't into anything like FFA or FCCLA or any other club like that.

I was just me and at that time I didn't like it(okay I still don't always like it lol). But P!nk was someone I could look up to who didn't fit in anywhere either. But she didn't care. She was confident and amazing and completely herself even no one else understood who she was.

P!nk came on to music scene as an R&B singer but she didn't want to be boxed in. So her second album she took over and did most of the writing on her own(a lot of which she did with Linda Perry from 4 Non Blondes). She created a style of her own. People who like rock say she isn't rock. People who are into pop say she isn't pop. She's just P!nk.

Also when she came on the music scene she did so at the same time as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. There was pressure on her to be more like them but she didn't cave. She stayed P!nk and she continued to write and sing her music and fly high. She has had a long amazing career as P!nk and while Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera's careers are pretty much over but P!nk is as successful as ever. Her newest album is the number 1 selling album by a female so far in 2017 after stepping away for 5 years!

Her music always makes me feel good about just being me. It makes me feel good about everything. When I listen to interviews with her I always come away feeling super happy. She is just so real! She's had a rough past but she's used it as motivation. Her speech on the VMA's a couple of months ago was AMAZING and she didn't even realize it. We need more  P!nk's in the world in my opinion!
It doesn't really appear at this point that kids are in my future but if they are I hope they and my nephews love music and find a musician that makes them feel the way P!nk makes me feel! I think everyone needs that!

Here are some of my favorite P!nk songs and performances and her VMA speech! Oh and a picture about music and Libra's that I happen to save and like.