Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

A street in Boston, covered in snow....as seen when we were out caroling.

The train, coming into our station---two blocks from our house.

Four of my amazing children, Aydan, Maryn, Brinna, and Clayton.

Nothing like COLD weather picture taking!
Brinna, Shawn, Bret, Clayton, Maryn and Aydan down front.

Beauty.
Love.
Family.
Christ.
His Birth.
Peace.
Music.
Lights.
Friends.
Warmth.
Snow.
Cold.
Ornaments.
A Tree.
Presents.
Great Food.
Goodies.
Wassail.
Amazing memories!
Christmas.

These are the things I love about this time of the year....and yes, its my favorite Holiday of all.
I hope that you are all having a great Holiday and that your transition into the New Year will be one of safety and fun times!

May you keep on loving, being loved, not too stressed, make music a part of every day and above all, keep reading my blog...

Christmas Music

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Ok, is it only me or have all the words changed on our old classic carols? I was just shopping a few days ago, and as per me, I started singing along with the soundtrack in the store. It was a classic Christmas carol, but done by a newer artist, and so I started to sing my usual harmony part...

Well, much to my dismay, the words were not the same!! I had to stop shopping and listen as someone totally destroyed a classic Christmas carol with new lyrics! Wait a minute, is this allowed? What is the world coming to, when we can't sing a carol and know the normal words anymore? Should we be checking up on line every year to see what the new lyrics are before we go out to do our holiday shopping?

How is the normal person supposed to harmonize and sing along as they shop?

Well, I was outraged and it ruined my whole Christmas shopping experience. I had to leave immediately, go into my car, take some deep breaths, and turn on my Carpenter's Christmas album to calm down.

Some things THEY can't touch!

It's The Most Tantrum Time Of The Year...

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....with the kids jingle-belling and everyone telling you, "BE OF GOOD CHEER"!

Yeah, right.

Yesterday I felt like I wanted to take a tantrum.
You know the kind----the real throw yourself down on the floor and kick and scream kind...

For some reason this time of year really brings it out in me...at least once a day, or lets be honest...sometimes ten times a day... I sometimes feel a little guilty, because I have so much to be happy about, but call it hormones or just being a big baby----I would love a good old-fashioned temper tantrum.

Now, I do actually take them from time to time, so don't you go thinking that I am holding back or anything! Oh, no, no, no.... You can just ask anyone in my family...

So, what are my top tantrums about right now?
Well, these are just the current ones...they will change as each year, month, day, hour and minute goes by....

Top ten reasons that I want to take a tantrum are because:

***I have lots of shopping still to do and am not organized about where to start.

***I want to stay with my G-babies and REALLY don't want to be so far away from them!

***I am stressed about the Christmas program at church

***I love to eat sweets this time of year and I still haven't gotten rid of this extra 15 pounds!

***I have an ache in my shoulder/arm area that won't go away, but I don't want to go to the doctor about it.

***I tried to put Christmas songs on my Zune, but it wouldn't synchronize them, because I was doing it on my laptop---so it asked me if it could take everything off and put it back on, then synchronize the new tunes, and it wiped out everything----so all I have on my Zune is Christmas songs----and the other songs will take me about a week to put back on...

***I have a garage FULL of stuff that needs to be organized----I mean, NOTHING is in the right place---and its going to take about 3 or 4 full days to do it!

***Financial annoyances---goes without saying...

***I need a show to direct in the spring---its becoming harder than I thought...

***Why can't we just all get along?

There you go---you might say that this is MY confession for this week. And I feel better now that I've gotten it off of my proverbial chest.

This should get me through a few days, anyway.