Well it tis the Christmas month. I can easily still wear tank tops and shorts and last night 'I Will Survive' was blaring on the campus speakers instead of Christmas carols. But then again, in the South, I have worn summer clothes on Christmas day before and maybe I Will Survive will get my kids through their midterms on Christmas Day. Oh and now the campus speakers are blaring the University's fight song. Until yesterday I didn't even know they had a fight song!
Well since there are 10 days left until Christmas I will write down ten of my favorite Christmas memories from the past:
-The Mercer Christmas celebration. This is where the entire campus comes out in their scarves and hats, drinks hot cocoa and eats Christmas cookies while our amusing professors read A Christmas Story to us and we sing Christmas carols while lighting candles. It is one of the strongest bonding moments I have experienced.
-Christmas at my grandparent's house. This is when my big family all comes together and we have a huge meal together. It is always nice to sit and talk with the whole family at one time. And for the past couple of years I was no longer seated at the kids table.
-Last year's Christmas/Thanksgiving party with my friends where we put up the tree together, sang carols together and ate a huge feast on a ping pong table, using all available seating items in my apartment. This event also includes all of us cooking together (including the infamous Cinnamon Apple Cider and my first ham).
-My family's tradition of decorating the house after Thanksgiving. I have always adored the amount of Christmas decorations my family has and I love decorating the house. Makes everything more festive. And we would always listen to the Trans Siberian Orchestra or the Chipmunk Christmas Carols.
-This was after Christmas, but since all of us wish for snow on Christmas, I like to group this in: the day it snowed my freshman year. I remember sitting in class, with all of the students staring out the window since the forecast called for snow (for real this time) and the teacher was getting quite upset that everyone was more concerned about the weather than class. And eventually she let us out since staying in class was pointless. I had snowball fights with people I didn't even know and there was the line of snowman waving at everyone as they drove down the road lining the park.
-I remember something I have always done for my family in the winter. I am an early riser and usually made hot tea or cocoa for everyone in the mornings before work and school. It was something I always liked to do and there is something so nice about drinking something warm and delicious to start off the day.
-The first day I can see my breath in the air because it is so cold is always a good day.
-Making cookies with my mother. Now, if you don't know my family, when we make cookies for the holidays we make a LOT of cookies. Like 50-60 is a minimum. As the years went on we kept adding more and more kinds of cookies. Gingerbread, sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies with the Hershey kisses in the middle, or the peanut butter cookies made in the mini-cupcake pans and with Reese's in the middle, sometimes ginger cookies, and my mother's special brownies (not THAT kind of special, mind you). The house would smell like cookies for days and sometimes we would be baking for two or three days getting all the cookies done. We would have to fight my brothers and dad out of the kitchen so they would quit eating the dough or just-out-of-the-oven cookies. And of course, after all the cookies were done, we would go and deliver them to family, friends and neighbors.
-Driving around and seeing the Christmas lights. I have gotten lost doing this but they are so pretty!
-And finally, Christmas is special to me because it is a very special day for my mother <3
Now, all these are past memories and very special to me. This year things will be different, as to be expected, since it has definitely been a very different year. This upcoming weekend I will have a small Christmas celebration with some of my friends up in Lampang and I will take those pictures of the Christmas decorations outside of the mall there. We are not planning anything big or fancy, but simply spending some time together talking, reading A Christmas Story aloud, eating good food, singing carols and watching a Christmas movie or two. On Christmas Day proper I will be at school, though my kids will be having midterms, so feel free to message or skype me, as I will be sitting at my desk all day. Hopefully the internet will cooperate. Last thing before I go, the thing I miss most about home this holiday season is the people I love and care about. Isn't that what the holiday season is all about?
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