Love this. This is a member of the rescue network and her trying to take a picture of her 20 dogs together! It's about 8 minutes long but worth every second!
I've had a lot of Christmas trees in my 54 years. I remember the one in this photograph, taken when I was six, but I remember the piano more. That had to be the best Christmas present ever. It certainly fostered my growing love affair with music. I never had the patience to learn to read music; I picked things out by ear instead, and that's probably the reason I was never very successful at playing music. I remember some of the first songs I taught myself on this little piano: My Favorite Things, Summer in the City, and an extended version (I guess it would be considered a remix now) of the staple, Chopsticks.
As I became an adult with children, we had everything from the Christmas tree inside a playpen, so the toddlers and family dog wouldn't knock it over, to 8-foot real traditional firs, adorned with silk bows, satin ornaments.....and flocking.
"Your mother, she's going through some flocking stage."
At least I think that's what the kids' dad called it. I was drinking a lot of nog. Pinecones, wreathes, nothing was safe. For several years in a row, I flocked everything in sight.
*Ahem* Moving on.
After the kids grew up I didn't give much thought to a Christmas tree. I believe there was even a year or two that I didn't even put one up. When I made the solitary move into this house 4 years ago this month, I was so broke -- I barely had furniture. It was bad, y'all; I was eating bread that I had to tear away the part a mouse had gotten into. I'd put every available resource into getting the house. But, I had candles, I had some booze, I had a little plug-in CD player/clock thingy, and my computer, so I had music...and I was out of the weather. No food, but had the booze and tunes covered, lol. Good times. The only thing missing was a Christmas tree.
I had even less reason than before to fool with one, but I really wanted one...my first Christmas in the first house I had ever bought on my own warranted a Christmas tree. I went to Big Lots and splurged...$19.99 for a 4-foot, pre-decorated tree. I grabbed a few little extra ornaments and I was set. It wasn't an 8-foot traditional live fir, but it was sparkly enough, and it was mine. And the boys came to my place for a simple holiday gathering.
Sometimes biggest-most expensive isn't the best. Sometimes timing is everything.
And the year after, the same tree sitting in a different spot (I still didn't have dining room furniture or curtains yet!)
And then again in the corner of the dining room for the last two years. (Gotta have my snowman and my doll.)
Since that first year in this old city house, my life has gone forward in that I can probably afford to replace that little "do-for-now" tree, but my spirit isn't quite willing to do so. Of all the trees I've had through the years, there's something glorious about this little one, and it means the most to me. It was the first invited guest in this home, it cheered me up during a bad time, and I consider this little tree a friend. It has a home here for life. Each year I add a little something to it -- a bird, or a special ornament, and although it's artificial, it grows one foot per year in my affection for it. So here's my little Christmas tree in 2009:
It jumped to this side of the dining room corner and this year it gets a star. Pay no attention that the star looks too big. The tree will grow into it. :)
Merry Christmas to all my fellow Voxers; may you have near to you, everything that's dear to you!
What would it take to get you to start a new life on a new world?
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Nothing short of a catastrophic natural or political disaster. The vast majority of my ancestors were not explorers; they were refugees, in a sense. They fled poverty, hunger, and religious persecution. I couldn't leave my home for anything less than that, either.
What's the worst book you've ever read?
If a book is really, really crappy I will put it down. Crappy as in bad prose and a boring plot. So "worst" to me means books that I have read all the way through and still hated. Wuthering Heights is definitely up there. I hated all the characters. I mean, really loathed them. I wanted them all to die horrible deaths. Heart of Darkness gets the prize for most boring book. It wasn't very long, but good heavens was it tedious.
If you could hang out with any movie character for a day, whom would you choose as your sidekick?
Sponsored by The Official AVATAR Community on TypePad. See AVATAR in theaters December 18, 2009.
Listen, "Avatar Community", if I get to hang out with any movie character I choose, I'm gonna pick a leading man, not a sidekick. Let's be real.
If I had to pick a sidekick specifically, you can't go wrong with a wizard, elf, Dunedin, or a stouthearted hobbit, could you?
What’s your favorite movie quote of all time?
Sponsored by The Official AVATAR Community on TypePad. See AVATAR in theaters December 18, 2009.
Perhaps not of all time, but certainly of Christmas time:
"Fra-GEE-lay....must be Italian!"
Followed very closely by:
"Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!"
What one film do you think everyone should see?
Sponsored by The Official AVATAR Community on TypePad. See AVATAR in theaters December 18, 2009.
Oh lord, so many. Right now I'm in the mood for The Fugitive, though, so I'll go with that one.
"Care to revise your statement, sir?"
"What?"
"Do you want to change you bullshit story, sir?"
I've always been interested in other people's stories and problems. Not in a busybody way, just in a curious way. That's why I am a psychology major, and it's why I watch shows about drug addiction, mental illness, and physical disease. The last few weeks I've been marinating myself in other people's challenges, and right now I feel like it's verging into unhealthy territory. Educating oneself and improving one's emapthy is one thing; drowning yourself in troubles that you can do nothing about is another.
So for today, at least, I'm veering into lighter territory.
How about a Christmas carol? I love Christmas music. I love carols that are as quiet and solemn as the snow that falls at night in December. I love big brass songs that play at warm and well-lit parties. I love singing in church with all the out-of-tune old ladies and I love listening to polished choirs.
I also like sparse, bright takes on traditional carols, like this one from Sufjan Stevens.
Hello, Vox neighbors! I'm back from a class trip to D.C., which was a wonderful week all around. It was very, very busy, but we did a lot of sightseeing and a lot of volunteering. Now I'm back with about 10 hours of sleep debt and a lingering cold, so I'll just post a few pictures and be done for the evening.
