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25 December 2008

Christmas

Happy Christmas.
I'm feeling better. (Thanks Nick!)

So, for explanations: I have three sisters (Emily, Brooks, and Libby), two brothers (Tyler and Joseph), and one "new" sister (Amia; she's a foreign exchange student living with my family for a year).
Tyler's doing a mission-thing for the LDS church currently, which means he was not here for Christmas.
So that's the people; plus my parents and grandparents (my dad's parents).

The traditions: Christmas Eve, we read about "the birth of Christ" in the Bible. We also do this Swedish tradition that I helped bring back to our family; my great-grandparents (on my dad's side) were Swedish (like, they came over from Sweden), and when they were alive and we had Christmas with them we did the "oolie-oolie-oolie-ay", which is the "we-don't-know-Swedish" version. It's an old Pagan custom, of course, adapted for Christianity and taken over by Santa Lucia, who is an Italian saint that got REALLY popular in Sweden for some reason, and the tradition involves the oldest girl-child wearing a crown of greens and candles (we use electric) and ringing bells, leading the rest of the family through every room of the house, singing and ringing the bells, to chase away the bad spirits and invite the good ones.
Papa and Mema were the only ones who really knew the song, though, so when they died, no one else could really do it anymore. So one Christmas, as a present to my dad, I talked to several family members, and got the music and the words and a rough phonetic pronounciation, and made the crown and the bells, and so now every year we do it.
(Long explanation, sorry.)
Also, we get pajamas every year on Christmas Eve (so we can sleep in them and wake up on Christmas in them), and an ornament every year--which, for the last two years, we've chosen names Secret Santa-style and made ornaments for each other. And we each open one present before going to bed.

So. For the Secret Santa, I got my sister Brooks, and Amia had me. I made Brooks a clay turtle ornament, because she loves turtles--and she LOVED it, which made me happy. Since we put all the ornaments on the tree, and then just pick them up and hand them to our person on Christmas Eve, I was looking at all the new ornaments, and there was this awesome Solstice-y one that was a gold ball, and a sun(flower) hanging from it (I'll post pictures once I'm back home), and that was my favorite (though there were other cool ones). And that was the one Amia had made for me! Which was awesome!
Our Christmas Eve presents, we usually open the present from our Secret Santa person, unless there's a reason not to (like I hadn't finished Brooks' corset yet, so she opened someone else's present), and Amia got me a REALLY nice copy of The Mists of Avalon--which is an AMAZING book!

Then, in the morning, we do the rest of the presents.
It was gratifying, because everyone really liked my presents. I got Joseph a play-dough set; Libby got a locking diary (to go inside the hollow book I got her for her birthday); Brooks of course got her corset (or, will get as soon as I'm finished); Amia got cute earrings with snowflakes on them (she's from Bolivia and Colombia and hasn't seen a lot of snow until getting here, so she loves things with snow); and I got Emmy a CD that took FOREVER to find (Remember That I Love You, by Kimya Dawson).
So that part was awesome.
Emmy got me a GORGEOUS bottle and Brooks got me an AWESOME wind-chime thingy.
I also got a super-suvvy (soft&fuzzy) robe and new slippers (my old ones were dying).
But the best presents were an air popper (for popcorn), which makes me SOOO happy (I LOVE popcorn), and a violin, which I didn't ask for, which makes it even better, in a way.
The violin was my mom's, for a while, when she was younger. So that's really cool. She also got me a book and a CD and things like a shoulder rest and rosin and useful violin-y things.
It makes me super-happy. It also means that my goal of learning to play the violin this year will be a LOT easier.

So, anyway, that was Christmas.
Our other tradition is to go see a movie in the evening; we saw Bedtime Stories, which I liked more than I thought I would.

On a quick non-Christmas-related note: I think my relationships-situations are looking up slightly. At least, I've had conversations with my complicated, and we've talked about things, which helps. (And I got to talk about the boy who doesn't like me enough, which made me feel a little better about it.)

Anyway, I'm less depressed/worried than I was before, so yay.
Happy Christmas. I love you all.

Gods Rest Ye Unitarians
(sung to the tune of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen)
Gods rest ye Unitarians
Let nothing you dismay
Remember there's no evidence,
There was a Christmas Day
When Christ was born is just not known
No matter what they say
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact
Oh tidings of reason and fact

There was no Star of Bethlehem,
There was no angel song.
There couldn't have been three wise men;
The trip would take too long.
The stories in the Bible are
Historically wrong
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact
Oh tidings of reason and fact

Our current Christmas customs come
From Persia and from Greece
From solstice celebrations of
The ancient Middle East
The whole damn Christmas spiel is just
Another pagan feast
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact
Oh tidings of reason and fact

5 comments:

  1. you're very welcome, don't think I didn't get a lot out of it myself.

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  2. Sounds like you had a pretty good Xmas despite all the shit going on. It's nice to be given thoughtful gifts. No matter what they are, just that someone put the thought and effort into getting something you'd like always makes it TONS better. :)

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  3. Definitely ... how was your Christmas?

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  4. It was pretty great. I actually received what I asked for, gave what was asked for, and my kid had an awesome time. What more could I ask for? ;)

    Just a month and a half until my baby is going to be born. I'm SO DANG READY. I feel like a house. Blah.

    ReplyDelete

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