Monday, November 18, 2013

'Tis the Season?

I am one of those people who absolutely hates it when I see holiday decorations displayed super-early. It's definitely one of my major idiosyncrasies. It makes me furious when people show total disregard for the calendar and rush the year away. I have seriously been overcome with waves of rage when I see "Back to School" displays in stores before July is over (really people?! Can't even wait until August??).

As you can imagine, this tends to hit me hard right around this time of year, when people have the tendency to immediately trade in their jack-o-lanterns and black cats for Christmas lights and snowmen. I have nothing against the yuletide season - and a tiiiiny voice in the back of my mind reminds me that this juxtaposition of decorations for these two holidays led to the awesomeness that is The Nightmare Before Christmas - but why the hell does everyone show such disregard for Thanksgiving? It's a holiday built around being grateful for those around you, and celebrating those blessings by eating copious amounts of savory, delightful food. What, pray tell, is so wrong with that that people need to turn a blind eye to this delicious event? Why is it soooooo hard to wait until the turkey has been packed into neat little Tupperware containers before you jingle those bells?

My standard rule is that Christmas cannot be officially welcomed until Thanksgiving dinner is completed. I force my parents to refrain from putting on the Christmas radio station on the ride to our family on Thanksgiving morning (yes, I am a brat). It's only when we're on the way back home that we crank up those festive tunes and speak the formerly forbidden "S"-word (Santa, clearly).

This year, however, is a bit different. With Thanksgiving still over a week away, I'm already getting excited for the Christmas season! The other day I found myself wandering down the Christmas ornament aisle at Target. I even debated getting a holiday sweater for our dog....to go with the reindeer ears I already bought her a few weeks ago.

Seriously, who am I?!

Maybe it's because Thanksgiving is a week later than normal and my internal holiday clock is a bit early compared to the calendar. Or it could be that I'm realizing next year my fiancĂ© (well, husband by then!!) and I will be decorating our own place for Christmas and I'm already excited about how our new traditions with our families will look. No matter the reason, I'm cutting myself a little slack - just because I'm ramping up for Christmas doesn't mean Thanksgiving will be any less special! I'm still going to eat that turkey and mashed potatoes like my life depends on it, even if I'm already thinking about what I can bake for Christmas Eve. I can't bring myself to listen to any Christmas music yet, though. But I have had a cup or two of hot chocolate, and I think next time I might add a candy cane...We'll see how it goes!
 

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Back in the Saddle

My oh my, does time have a way of getting away from me sometimes!

I had all these plans for some new blogs posts after my fiancé popped the question, per my previous post (much like how I had ideas for a blog post before he proposed!). I was going to do a summer wrap-up...a little vent about how wedding planning isn't always as shiny and fluffy as people make it out to be (might revisit that later, actually)...a list of all the things about the fall that make me love this time of year (spoiler: it involved pumpkin-flavored ev'rythaaaang)...a recount of all the fun autumn activities I took place in, and all the ones I regrettably missed out on, at least so far.

But you know what the say about the best-laid plans of mine and men: Nothing I wanted to write about actually got written. Life got pretty busy, but I can't complain, because it was only good things I got whisked up in! Engagement- and birthday-related celebrations, for both myself and other friends and family, the jump-start of wedding planning, work craziness, getting back into a fairly steady workout routine, and many other things that always left me saying, "You know what? I'll just blog tomorrow." You can guess how often I actually followed through on that one, seeing as how my last post was 2 months ago. Yikes!

But the time has come for me to be a bit more dedicated to writing. I started this blog to get into the habit of writing on a regular basis and working on finding my "voice," so I'm determined to make writing in this blog a part of my routine.

Not only do I have a lot of great things coming down the pike, but I have a lot of things that I've experienced recently that I would love to share:

 - Our engagement party
 - Our first steps in putting together our wedding: checking out venues, trying on bridal gowns, etc.
 - the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy
 - checking out an awesome local outdoor sculpture park/art museum

There are so many things I want to talk about, which I think will be pretty great motivation to writing on a regular basis - I'm looking forward to getting back into this thing, so let's do it!