Celebration: Christmas Memory #2: Hot Wassail, Mood Lighting and Good Friends

I met my best friend in high school and she and her family have become like a second family to me. While she was on her mission I hung out a lot with her younger sister and that winter the two of us and sometimes some other good friends of ours (or other family, which were also our friends) would make a batch of wassail and sit cross-legged next to the Christmas tree and talk with all the lights out except the ones on the tree. Probably we were mostly gossiping about boys, but the light from the tree and the warmth of that wassail in our bellies made those moments seem magical and life changing. I'll always remember that feeling at Christmas.

I wanted to find a video of steaming hot wassail to put everyone in that magical mood, but can you believe no one's posted something like that on youtube? So here's an traditional Christmas song I've never heard before, but is sung by Loreena McKennit, who generally makes really good Christmas songs. I haven't decided if I like this one that much yet, though. Note: I've noticed those old Christmas carols really acknowledged the importance of food at Christmas, sometimes in impressive detail.

Celebration: Singing Christmas Songs in Church

I like going to church in December because it means we get to belt out Christmas songs with a whole load of people. I wish we'd add more Christmas songs to the hymn book though. Like wouldn't it be awesome if the congregation attempted the high notes in "O Holy Night" or crooned "Santa Baby?"

Here's a version of "Santa Baby" with a hilariously incongruous graphic. Try to picture the Relief Society president putting on this mood. (Or if you're not Mormon, picture your proper, kindly aunt trying it.) I know there's only part of the song here, but I'm tired and I don't feel like searching for a full version.

Celebration: Christmas Movies

One of the best parts of the Christmas season is Christmas movies. There are a few standards that I try to watch every year, like White Christmas and Love Actually, but I'm looking for some new ones to watch this year. Not necessarily ones that were made recently but new to me. For instance I watched The Christmas Story FOR THE FIRST TIME (Yes, that's right; the first time) only last year. So obviously my Christmas movie experience needs to be expanded. And I need your help. What are some of your favorite Christmas movies?

White Christmas is, I think, the ultimate Christmas movie. I wanted to share two of my favorite parts of the movie - 1) where Danny Kaye does the "Choreography" dance and 2) where Rosemary Clooney sings "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me" - but I couldn't find those clips anywhere on YouTube. So instead here is another of my favorite moments (I shared the URL in one of my comments earlier, but if you didn't check it out then, check it out NOW! My favorite part is at around 1:30.):

Celebration: Christmas Memory #1 - Elementary School Christmas Song

(This is the meager little Christmas tree we had our first Christmas together...

and is still the only one we have.)

Whenever anyone says, "Merry Christmas," I immediately think of my elementary school Christmas song. Part of it goes like this, "Merry Christmas, Orem Elementary! May your Christmas be all that it's meant to be."  That always gets stuck in my head. 

I don't know if it's a common thing for elementary schools to have Christmas songs, like maybe you have to have a school Christmas song before you can officially function as an elementary school? But my school definitely had one. We had a Christmas assembly and all the kids in the whole school would gather in the auditorium where they had this huge Christmas tree and we would sing our Christmas song, each grade with its own special verse. I remember the first time I ever sang it; it's probably one of my first clear Christmas memories. There I was, a puny kindergartener (I've always been small, but in kindergarten I was super puny), sitting next to my friend and next door neighbor Amelia (who was taller than I was then but is smaller than I am now - I even remember the day we noticed I was taller) and staring up at the enormous tree and over that crowd of kids who were all way bigger than I was, feeling a sort of trepidatious excitement as the other kindergarteners and I got ready to belt out our verse, hoping I wouldn't get the words wrong, and wondering in a sort of vague confusion why it was we were singing a song to our school building. I thought maybe even inanimate objects needed a little Christmas cheer.

The problem with this memory is that for years I couldn't remember any other part of the song than the one I quoted above and the very end: "...a merry Christmas, Orem Elemen-ta-ry!" So this year I utilized the magical world of Facebook and asked my fellow Orem Elementary alumni to help put together all the pieces. We're not sure we've got everything right, but we're pretty sure it goes something like this (pretty sure the kindergarten line is wrong):

Merry Christmas, Orem Elementary!
May your Christmas be all that it's meant to be,
As we gather 'round the Christmas tree,
A merry Christmas Orem Elemen-ta-ry!
The kids in kindergarten are ready to get started
The children in the first, are just about to burst.
The children in the second, are hoping and expectin'.
The carols down in third are the best you've ever heard.
The children in the fourth are spreading cheer of course.
The children in the fifth are making Christmas gifts.
The kids down in sixth are playing Christmas Tricks!
Through out the school we'll have a happy yule!
A merry Christmas Orem Elemen-ta-ry!

Years later in college I reconnected with some friends from elementary school. I remember sitting with them at Wingers where we often went to eat and talk, and someone brought up the old elementary school Christmas song. Trying to remember the words and laughing over our mistakes while eating hot taco soup on a cold day - that's a good Christmas memory too.

Celebration: Baby, It's Cold Outside. Even in Vegas.

Although there is no sign of snow in Vegas, it has actually been pretty chilly. So I'm celebrating that the elements are giving me at least that much Christmas spirit. In honor of the cold(ish) weather, here is a little Christmas treasure complements of Gap and my good friend Carrie who shared this on her blog last Christmas (or the one before that?)



Ah, isn't that fun? Carrie, I miss you.

Celebration: The Christmas Season, Baby!

I can't stand how happy I am that it's the Christmas season. It makes me so happy I can't sit still. I'm listening to Christmas music and dancing all over our apartment. Maybe I can count it as my exercise? I've always loved Christmas, but I think the last few years I've developed as much excitement for the Christmas season as I used to get as a kid. Who knows why? Just one day it started feeling completely magical again.

Another thing that's changed is I've mostly embraced the cheesy nature of Christmas music. I remember sitting in the car with my parents and plugging my ears and moaning through most of the Christmas music played on FM100 or whatever station it was. Now I've got a Pandora Radio station filled with loads of cheesy Christmas music (though I still can't handle some of it - really, there's a limit, Brian McKnight) and I'm LOVING it. My favorite Christmas song right now is Stevie Wonder's "One Little Christmas Tree." I discovered it in our iTunes library my first Christmas with Jordan and I can't believe I'd never heard it before. (I'm so glad I married Jordan so my Christmas music experience could be enriched...) So I'm sharing it with everyone today, the first day of December. Please embrace this cheesy wonder:

(Unfortunately I couldn't find one with a real music video. So sad. I bet if there were one, it would be AMAZING.)

Celebration: Keeping Fit

I am now in my 5th week of exercising for at least 30 minutes 4 days a week. And I feel so great! It used to be struggle just to get myself to exercise consistently for 3 DAYS. I feel like my perception of myself has shifted a little. Now I'm the sort of person who can maintain an exercise routine rather than a person who only attempts and fails. I may not always be able to keep it up as regularly as I have been, but now I know it lies in my power to do it.

In Welsh instead of saying "exercise" they say cadw'n heinu (said, "CAH-doon HAY-nee), which means "keeping fit." So in Welsh I would have said, "I am now in my 5th week of keeping fit for at least 30 minutes 4 days a week..." I like this phrase because it directly states the goal whereas "exercise" is more about the process. When I think about exercise as keeping fit I feel just that little bit more motivated. Isn't it funny how simply using different words for the same thing changes how we feel about it?