DECEMBER 7
The Christmas PartRight now I'm looking out my window at a string of lights entwined in a tree's branches, and they're like little gold dots twinkling in the darkness, and it makes me so happy. The thing about Christmas lights is that they're so lovely that I wish they were around all year, but then we'd lose the novelty of it, which is a big part of their appeal. I think decorations should go up no earlier than mid November and should stay up as late as mid January. Before and after that, they embody an anticipation that is just too far away to do any good. Can you have Christmas lights without Christmas music? without stockings hung by the chimney with care? Without the trappings of what is arguably the biggest communal celebration of the year? I think not. It's really wonderful to drive around the neighborhood in mid December looking at all the houses decked out for the holidays. I love all the lights, especially the askew ones: the tree that's only partly lit; the ones with a whole section that has gone out; the single-color strand thrown haphazardly over a bush (we call these "snakes"); the ones that are supposed to blink, but don't; the ones that aren't supposed to blink, but do. I also love the big amazing tree near our apartment. As soon as you go around the corner you can see it, all bluish-whitish trunk and branches against the night sky. It's mind-boggling. Sometimes I think seeing Christmas lights is the closest I'll get to magic. |
The #WEverb11 Part
Here's where I traveled this year: NOWHERE. Wait, let me check my calendar ... oh, I went to La Crosse, WI, which is a three-hour drive away. I guess that's something. We were supposed to take a trip to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, New Jersey, and New York last month, but that didn't work out due to health reasons. Luckily I'll be heading to Evanston, IL (near Chicago) for Christmas. I think that's far enough from Minneapolis to feel like an honest-to-God out-of-town vacation. The problem is that our travel margin is very slim. I can't really go anywhere January through March because of my work schedule, and we don't like to travel during the warm months (i.e., April through September) because we hate heat, which means we're really only available October and November. Preferably November for its temperature and proximity to the holidays. Oh, also? I don't have enough money to take trips. So there's that. But! Assuming I make travel a priority, and build a nice little budget that includes savings for vacations, and I manage to convince Jesse that Alaska and Finland will probably be perfectly comfortable in July, I hope to go all sorts of interesting places next year! I do really want to go to the Grand Canyon. I want to see for myself the enormity of it, the colors and the landscape and the general amazingness of it all. I'd love to get to the Pacific Northwest, because it seems like the weather there was custom-made for me (Rain? Cool temperatures? Where do I sign up?), and I want to see a mountain. Oh, and I want to go back to London so badly. I mean, yeah, there are so many places we haven't been in the world. But I adored London. I was there for school in 2000 and then again with Jesse in 2002. There's so much we haven't seen there, and so much I'd love to see again. In the end, who knows what 2012 will bring? I might end the year living in Russia. Yeah, that probably won't happen. But it might! |