Story

I love Ali Edwards' blog (see link to the right) -- she is a famous scrapbooker who wrote for Creating Keepsakes magazine for many years, and she designs digital scrapbooking images, and she has this awesome blog she uses to encourage others to live artistically. For the last few years, she's been encouraging her readers to select a "Word of the Year" at the start of each year -- basically a word to live by, a word that will kind of guide you and ground you throughout the year, a word that will perhaps remind you of what you think is important, a word that will give you focus.

Oddly enough, until now, I blew off selecting any such word of my own. It was one of those things that seemed like a nice idea but made more sense for other people, not me. You know what I mean? But this year, I gave the notion some thought when Ali challenged her blog readers to think about their word about a week or so ago. And I came up with my word...

Story.

Funnily enough, this wound up being the same word Ali herself chose, and for many of the same reasons I've chosen it. Overall, because telling stories is important to her, and I feel the same way. I also like how she talked about being more aware of the fact that she is a character in the story of her own life, and how she has threads in her story she might like to weave in another direction.

I've been a storyteller as long as I can remember. As a small child, I enjoyed hearing a good story, and eventually learned to tell a good story -- mainly in writing, but sometimes orally as well. I've had so many stories swimming around in my head for so many years. In college, I majored in Creative Writing and was sure I'd spend my life writing novels and stories... but doing that for a living turned out to be harder work than I expected, and I let the writing fall by the wayside. I've started and stopped and started again more novels than I really care to admit... okay, I think 4 at last count. And I've made countless scrapbook albums over the last several years with the intention of adding all this great storytelling to them, only to cave in to expedience and leave them as they are, lacking what they need to become real: the stories behind the photos.

And so part of the reason behind my word choice is inspiration, a reminder to tell the stories that I've promised to tell. That means finishing my unfinished scrapbooks. It means picking up my novels and working on them, eventually finishing them.

And the other part is to live the story of my life with a little more intention, a little more deliberation. Sometimes I think I am way too content to sit back and let things happen, rather than stepping up and making things happen. I would prefer to be the writer of my own story from this point forward, so I am going to make more things happen. I've noticed over the last few months that I've been more willing to do this in certain situations, and it's made life more magical, and a lot more fun. I can't sit by and let someone else control my destiny any longer. I'm going to write my own story, thank you very much.

I can't wait to see where this leads me. At the very least, it will lead me into a better mindset, one I've been heading toward for several months now. It's exciting.

Maybe on December 31st, I'll write a story here about what a great year we had, instead of being glad to see it go.

Christmas Hangover

I'm not surprised that I got bored by the daily "journal your Christmas" prompts halfway through -- they started getting really redundant, and my decision to actually blog them was a mistake... I think they were intended to be pondered over more deeply than I usually do for a blog entry, but I hoped that blogging them would at least get me started, so I could then transfer them into my scrapbooks later.

So I have Christmas hangover this morning. That feeling of, "That's it??" Nothing a little spending of gift cards won't cure, though...

My friend Jason has posted his year-end Top 10 singles over at his blog -- you should check it out for some new and different music: http://www.audiofordrinking.blogspot.com/.

What else... not much. We just had the building maintenance guy over here for 45 minutes repairing our kitchen light fixture. He's so bizarre. He was basically throwing a temper tantrum the whole time because he had to come back after putting in new bulbs last week; he didn't put the cover back on properly, and the new bulbs were flickering like strobe lights. Once he finished up today, he was all, "Next time call sooner for new bulbs." Like it was our fault. And then he wanted to stay and chitchat about football and his shitty Christmas.

I'm not sure he's all there upstairs.

O! Christmas Tree

It isn't Christmas if the tree isn't up and decorated.

We tried to skip it last year because we went away for the week after Thanksgiving, which is when I usually decorate the house. By the time we got back to town, it seemed so late, like we'd get it up and it'd be Christmas so soon after and then I'd just have to take it right back down. But it turns out it was depressing to not have it up. It didn't feel like Christmas at all. We were broke, my job wasn't going well, etc. etc. But the minute we finally got the tree up, things started to look up.

And that's the point. The tree isn't for other people to see. It isn't intended to impress anyone. It doesn't have to be fancy, but it's okay if it is. All it needs are some lights. It's your own personal beacon of hope in a world that can sometimes feel really dark.

Write about your favorite holiday movies or shows.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (the original, cartoon version).

A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Snow (this is one of those cheesy ABC Family movies that came out a few years ago).

The Night They Saved Christmas.

The Brady Bunch Christmas episode.

Prancer.

The Polar Express.

The Holiday (Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Jude Law and Cameron Diaz).

Love, Actually.

Holiday Parties

We don't host a holiday party; we just attend the parties of other people. Or make an effort to get together with long-time friends for a meal or whatever. My son's dad hosts a Hanukkah party every year, so we usually go over there for that. My best friend's birthday is the 23rd and most years we do something to celebrate for her -- she likes Indian food and a visit to the Zoo Lights best, but sometimes it's too cold so we've taken all the kids to a movie instead. My friends Rob and Marci from high school have an annual Christmas party at their house and we went this year; it was fun -- lots of kids for The Pook to run around with and lots of old friends to catch up with!

After we moved to Colorado when I was 9, our friends the Leahys down the street always had a party on Christmas Eve, with lots of friends and food and fun. The only year it didn't happen was in 1982, the year of the Christmas blizzard, but we were able to go over anyway since we were just two doors away. I loved those Christmas Eve parties. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that sometimes, they were more fun than actual Christmas morning! I know that's crazy... you know how much I love presents...

Holiday Lights

When I was little, really little, after Christmas Eve service at church, my dad would drive us around town to look at Christmas lights. It would be the four of us -- eventually the five of us -- snuggled into our little car, looking for the best lights and the best decorations. Back then, people didn't get too crazy with the decorations, but there were always houses that were more lavishly decorated than others. Those were my favorites. Lots of colored lights, maybe a plastic Santa and reindeer.

And now that I'm a lot older I find that I love the houses where the people go all out and make a complete spectacle of their holiday lights. The whole point behind the "Holidays of Light" is that humans have always looked for a way to light up the darkest days of the year, and turned to annual rituals to do so. Christmas lights on houses are part of these rituals. My feeling, as someone who gets a little depressed by the dark days, is "the lighter, the better." And so it cheers me to see a house where the lights are nutty and overdone; I love that people do up their houses just to cheer up other people. I love to visit the Denver Zoo for the Zoo Lights; this year we're going to try the Botanic Gardens, which we've seen from the highway a few times and looks quite beautiful.

So my favorite holiday sight is the lights. I love it when I look at the lights of the city this time of year and they're brighter than usual.

What is your favorite Christmas book?

I have enjoyed many Christmas books over the years -- The House Without a Christmas Tree. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The Gift of the Magi. A Christmas Carol. They're all great. But what I'm really, really a sucker for is lavish illustration and a cute story. So my very favorite is Jan Brett's The Wild Christmas Reindeer. It's about a little elf girl who is charged with prepping Santa's reindeer for the Christmas Eve voyage, but the reindeer don't want to cooperate. She learns how to be more patient and gentle, and the reindeer are ready on time.

I could look at the artwork in Jan Brett's books for hours. It's very Norwegian and colorful. There are all kinds of hidden details, including side panels featuring Hedgie the hedgehog looking for a cozy winter home or something like that. My son and I love Hedgie. Jan Brett visited his school when he was in kindergarten and gave all the kids a little beginning reader book about Hedgie.

Anyway, if you're looking for something to read with your kids for Christmas, Jan Brett's book are the best.