I promised I would begin sharing silliness yesterday, but if I can't break arbitrary promises on the internet, where can I? There's considerable nostalgia at Christmastime, and it makes sense. It's a magical time of year for the youngest of us, and while I do believe it's possible to make very merry as a grown-up, I remember the holidays of my youth with a ruby glow, Making liberally glue-sticked and cotton-balled construction paper Christmas decorations with my brother, helping my mom string lights inside the house and my father out, obsessing over the TV guide and when the classic holiday specials would be on television, drinking hot cocoa on Christmas Eve and driving around looking at lights. We still do this last with our children. And perhaps when they've grown up a bit, they'll keep themselves up too, too late singing Christmas carols in bed, as my brother and I did, waiting for Santa Claus.
I've had some sweet moments as an adult, too. One year my husband, then-boyfriend, surprised me with Nenya, and my excitement certainly approached that of the engagement ring he slipped onto my finger a few years later. The year after we were married I obsessively tried to acquire a hodge podge of bride's tree ornaments. I made stockings for the two of us and one each from the same pattern for our girls when they arrived. We've watched them grow into the wonder of the season, and anticipate many years of fun to come. I believed in Santa Claus until i was nine, and I had to be told that he wasn't real. Either my parents were really, really good, or my imagination just wasn't ready to let go. I expect a little bit of both.
And as my community of friends and the source of some of my joys has grown online as well as off, there are some digital delights I revel in each year, such that it doesn't even feel like Christmas, really, until I have. So I thought I would share them with you here. They're not going to change your life, but they might make you smile. And this year, I know I need that more than ever.
Enough with the preamble. I'm giving you two treats today, because I failed you yesterday.
- Every year that I can remember as a child we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the past few years we've watched it with our daughters, too. This year my youngest asserts that every piano solo is "Charlie Brown." But what I don't watch with them I certainly giggle to myself over, and that's this classic performed by the cast from Scrubs. Probably only funny if you watched this show and wanted for a hot minute to be
one of the cool kidsa doctor, but still. - I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation. So this gets me every year.