It's that time of year...

...When the world falls in love
every song you hear seems to say
Merry Christmas, may your new year dreams come true...


Man, I was a little reluctant to leave my home after Thanksgiving break. But like it or not, I'm back in B'ham in my little dorm... I would say cozy, but the window was open for a while and it's still rather cold... Anyway, what I'll miss around this time of year is my dad constantly playing Christmas Carols. And I mean constantly. And not just the ones you'll hear nonstop when you tune into Warm 106.9. He tends to be a worldly guy. So we'll hear gregorian and medival chants that are can range up to over 500 years old, or perhaps so George Winston on his piano, and even some vintage Doris Day. And he loves Irish Christmas music; particularly by one group we see in concert every year.
I was so used to this all my life, that I was surprised in that in high school my friends didn't even know the tune "O Little Town of Bethlehem." In fact I was really disappointed in elementary school, even, when we were forced to sing "Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer" and "Up on the Housetop" instead of classics such as "Angels We Have Heard On High" or "The Carol of the Bells." (Had I known the religious connotation with those songs at the time, I might've seen why they weren't used for a public school at that age level)
These are the only songs I'll actually sit at a piano to play. I'm hardly worthy of being heard at all at my skill level, but my mom bought a whole bunch of easy piano Christmas Song books one year, so some of them aren't that hard to learn. I usually just play the melody. There's a couple that I know the right and left hands for. I can count them on my right hand. "O Holy Night" is one of them. It's my favorite Christmas carol of all time. It's melody is just wonderful. It's the only song I've ever extensively worked on in my life. It's the only that I can almost say I can play. It's the song that I've worked the longest on. I'm still working on it after... say... 7 years? Wow... I'm still pretty bad at it, but it's much better than what I started out with. If I get time to practice it some more, and if you're VERY VERY VERY lucky, I just might play it for you. But don't get your hopes up.

I also am gonna miss watching movies with my family for a bit. We have a tradition each year of watching nearly all of our Christmas movies one night at a time during the season. I like to kick it off with my favorite one, The Santa Clause. I got my way this year. But now I have to go two weeks without a single one... hmm.

I will say that after a while I did want to get out of the house. Time and again it has been proven to me that I can't stay in the house more than 2 days with my family before something starts to snap. It usually happens with three youngest sibs. It happened again. I wonder how I'll survive the whole winter break with them... all you people who I consider friends, prepare to get bombarded with desperate self-invitations from me!

Other than that, I had a rather fun weekend. I mostly hung around the house on Wednesday, went to the store to get some Thanksgiving ingredients, and talked with friends on the phone and online.
Thanksgiving--food. And the parade in the morning. And food. And tryptophan. (Thank you Mary and Kirsten) And sleepiness. And a Seinfeld special. And food.
Friday I got to hang out with Sarah; I had not seen her in 3 months! We saw the Spongebob movie. Not bad, some of it could've been better, but it had its moments. We went back to my house, watched some TV, talked in my room, and ate Thanksgiving left overs while having discussions with my family at the dinner table. I'm glad for that day.
The next day the fam and I saw the Incredibles. Not bad, not bad at all. I thought it was pretty good, although I will say I didn't laugh THAT much. Finding Nemo still tops it. But it wasn't bad. So then we picked out our Christmas trees. Yes, trees. We get two every year. We didn't bring them home, but we reserved them. The rest of the day was spent frittering away, until dinner time and movie time.
Next day, rejoiced that this would be the last day for two weeks that I'd have to put up with my sibs. Dreaded that I'd be coming back to Dead week, and would have to start studying for the finals next week. Furthermore I register for classes this Wednesday... ACK!!! But hopefully this time will pass without too much discomfort, and I'll come back to my house with a little more spirit, and perhaps a better tolerence for my siblings.

In the meantime, I'll find some Christmas carols to jam to. *Cue Carol of the Bells*