Christmas is not complete without a baby cousin to play with

I am now the proud new owner of a MacBook Pro, which I am over the moon about. I've been in desperate need of a new computer for the past year now, and my parents finally decided to take pity on me and buy it for me, since there is absolutely no way I could ever afford it on my own.

As a result, I'm just now getting my photos from Christmas loaded, and couldn't resist sharing a few of my favorite shots of my 1-year-old cousin Severin, just because he's so absolutely adorable.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Time is Here Again

A small selection of vaguely Christmas-themed images from my trip to New York City last year for your viewing pleasure. As you can probably tell, I love Christmas lights :)

Enjoy, and happy holidays to all!

Neon Lights

Although it's been said many times, many ways...

Footprints in the first snowfall last year

It may have been 80 degrees outside the past few days here, but I’ve been seeing a lot facebook statuses about the first snowfall posted by my friends in other, snowier, places. This is going to be my first snow-less winter, and I’m a little sad about it.

When I was young the one thing I wished for more than anything else as this time of year rolled around was a white Christmas. Christmas was my favorite holiday by far, and not just because of the presents (although they were definitely a nice perk).

To me, Christmas meant snow and lights and Christmas Eve at my grandmother’s house with all my cousins.

It meant mittens and crisp cold air, decorating the tree and writing a letter to Santa.

Searching the house with my brother and sister for my mom’s gift list to see what presents we were getting.

Building structures out of the presents under the tree, including a fort for the cat.

Having snow battles with the neighbor kids.

Seeing Christmas lights glowing everywhere you looked.

Playing an angel in the Christmas pageant at church.

Standing with my cousin in front of my grandma’s big picture window on Christmas Eve with our noses pressed to the glass, searching the night sky for Rudolph’s red nose.

Night view of Radio City Music Hall at Christmastime

One of my most vivid memories from childhood, evoked every time I listen to the Oak Ridge Boys’ Christmas album (a family favorite), is of coming into the warm, bright house from the snowy darkness outside during Christmastime. The house would be lit up with lamps and Christmas lights everywhere, my mom would have the Oak Ridge Boys playing on the speakers and the smell of baking Christmas cookies would fill the air while I pulled off all my snow clothes and rushed into the kitchen to taste-test the warm gooey cookies fresh from the oven.

Although it has been years since I’ve done that, the memory lingers.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve been kind of a Grinch the past few years due to some family problems, and I’m not entirely sure why I’m suddenly so nostalgic now. Maybe it has something to do with being so far from my friends and family and everything I know. The exotically warm weather is just the most obvious manifestation of how different everything is for me now.

Now more first snowfalls for me, at least for the next two years.

My Holiday Wish List

I realize that not only is today already Christmas Day, but that the day is almost over. However, since my family isn't actually having our Christmas celebration until my siblings and I all converge on my parents' place at New Year's, this list isn't late after all. In this case, I've decided to bring you my top 5 holiday wish list, counting down to the one thing I want more than anything else for Christmas. So here's hoping....


5.) Northanger Abbey

This is one of my favorite Jane Austen novels, and the 2007 Masterpiece Theater movie version is one of the best film adaptations of an Austen novel that I've seen. Northanger Abbey is less epic than Pride & Prejudice but has its' own brand of romantic sweetness. It's really a spoof of the gothic novel craze at the time, and tends to come off more like a teenager's P & P, I think. I yearn to own this DVD, so I can watch Catherine's silly adolescent daydreams over and over again. She's a girl after my own heart: adorable, imaginative, and completely deserving of her very own happily-ever-after with Mr. Tilney.



4.) Harm None thumb ring

I love this ring from Pyramid Collections. I've always liked thumb rings, and "Harm None" is a motto I can live by.



3.) Gloria Jean's flavored coffees

Usually I try to buy only fair trade organic coffee, but I have a weakness for Gloria Jean's yummy flavored coffees. I think my personal favorite was chocolate caramel, but they're all good. Plus, Gloria Jean's isn't entirely evil, as they are partnered with the Rainforest Alliance in an attempt to improve the lives of coffee growers and conserve the fragile ecosystems where coffee is grown.



2.) Kiva.

I love the idea of Kiva. Random people giving microloans to finance entrepreneurial small-business owners in the third world? How brilliant is that? Microloans are a vital part of stimulating the economies of developing countries, and also help individual, ordinary people at the same time. Sheer genius.



1.) Reality Tour to Afghanistan--courtesy of Global Exchange.

I discovered Global Exchange and their reality tours sometime last year, and became an instant fan. I love to travel, but I've always hated the idea of being a typical "tourist"where you go to a country, see the sights, and then leave without learning anything about the people or what life in that country is really like. I like this idea of "responsible tourism;" where you learn about a major issue affecting a country, region, and/or culture. I've always been the type of traveler that visits museums instead of bars (sadly, unlike most Americans of my age); and I firmly believe that the best way to learn about a place is firsthand from the regular people that live there, instead of tour guides.

Out of all the places they offer tours to, the yearly trip to Afghanistan piqued my interest the most because for most Americans, the only context they have is war, terrorists, and women in bright blue burqas. I like to know things, so I tend to deeply pursue topics that interest me--and even some that don't. I've done a lot of research into Afghanistan and learned enough to know that there is far more to that country and the people that live there than can be summed up in the war/terrorist label. I'm also somewhat fascinated by the culture and the history, and all of the struggles currently taking place there, the least important of which is the one between NATO and the Taliban.

However, as I currently work for minimum wage I only earn about $12,000 a year, and this trip costs about a fourth of my annual income at nearly $3,000 (the program fee plus airfare), it doesn't look like I'll be heading to Afghanistan come March.

Merry Christmas To All, And To All a Good Night!

Happy holidays, everyone! Here are a few timeless and classic Christmas quotes for your holiday cheer. Enjoy!


"Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive."

-Robert Lynd


"Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone round the Christmas fire, and make the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete."

-Charles Dickens


"Christmas is a time when you get homesick -- even when you're home."

-Carol Nelson


And of course, no compilation of Christmas-themed quotes is complete without the well-known and oft-quoted...


Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

By Francis P. Church, first published in The New York Sun in 1897. [See The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9.]

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

'Tis the Season, After All

Christmas at the Radio City Music Hall in NYC.

Christmas is such a great excuse. You can use it to justify all sorts of impulse buys beyond your price range, as I have found out over the past two Christmases.

I bought myself my Christmas present today. I really shouldn't have, as I definitely can't afford it right now, but I couldn't help myself. How often do you run across precisely what you have spent several years been looking for--and it's on sale?

It was meant to be.

I've been trying to find a good weekender bag for quite a while now, even going so far as buying a poor imitation all the while knowing that it wasn't what I wanted just because it was close enough, and I was desperate. Then I was reading one of my new favorite blogs today, La Dolce Vita, and she had a great gift guide posted, including several really cute things from the online store Cerulean. I'd never heard of it before, so I went to the website and it immediately became one of my favorite places to shop, if only from the tagline alone:

"Cerulean--A World of Style Delivered to Your Door."

How great is that? Not to mention that the merchandise is fabulous. Being my usual broke self, I went straight to the "Sale" section and the first thing I saw was this amazing weekender.



The best part is, it's on sale for $93 instead of its usual $124. How can a girl pass that up? This bag appears to be everything I've been scouring the internet and luggage stores for, it's absolutely adorable, and on sale to boot! I had to get it.

So I did. All I can say is: Thank goodness for credit cards :)

Home (but not really) for Christmas (but not actually)

I'm back in my hometown bunking with a friend for the weekend. My parents moved out of state, so it's weird to be back in my hometown with no home. I love my friend and her family, though, so I'm having a great time here. I'm meeting up with a few of my friends from high school tonight, including my recently engaged old old old friend. Exciting!