Wear Warm Clothes

Returning from the wild and crazy fun time that is choir rehearsal, I was piled with layers, wearing leggings all day in addition to my jeans, my MMTA hoodie (the warmest sweatshirt I've ever had), gloves, red pashmina scarf and my Great-Grandma Chickie's hunting jacket (complete with back pocket for newly acquired dead pheasants---eeww!) . That coat's gotta be around 60 years old but it shows no sign of falling apart soon. And oh, how warm and fuzzy it all felt!
I was kind of expecting mass chaos with this 7 inch first snowstorm, but it seemed like people who didn't need to drive their car didn't, the people who did were mostly careful, and we didn't die. Yay!

If only it was the right type of snow, then I'd try and make a snow human/angel. I've always wanted to do some grand Calvin & Hobbes-like snow project. Maybe an ice and snow replica of the Easter Island faces. We can't sled for awhile because our sled is broken, which is something that needs to be addressed. But time and the lovely warmth of inside are what's keeping me from doing all these things year after year.

Yesterday, we embraced the weather--kind of. I shoveled snow off the driveway (and today I really feel it too), which pretty much wiped my wimpy self out, so I read a book to fight off boredom (A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore--it's real good so far). That's the thing when you're home schooled and there's a snow day. It's basically like all your other days, at least for us. So I was trying to find a way to make it less normal, but because I had been outside freezing my mouth closed and getting the most epic of hat hair, I didn't want to go outside and make a snowhuman or whatever. There will be other times, I'm sure.

What we did do was make krumkake, the Norwegian cookie, and we turned on Garrison Keillor singing Scandahoovian Christmas music. That definitely warmed the house up and kept us busy for a long time. I was training in my younger brother to be krumkake roller, and I watched the stove. This is the second batch we've made this week, as we like to give a bunch for Christmas presents for teachers and friends. One of our regular krumkake recievers is doing an internship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, however, and unfortunately I don't think it'd be the wisest thing to ship it all that way. If he got it, it would arrive as crumbs, and that's no fun.

And of course, while everything else in the county was cancelled for the day, choir still went off without a hitch. The hymn says, "No storm can change my inmost calm...How can I keep from singing?" Indeed.
I walked out the door thinking that I looked like a lumberjack, which led me to sing the classic Monty Python song that goes, "I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay...", which led me to think, "I'm not just okay, I'm warm!"

May all enjoy winter and wear warm clothes.

Em: Christmas Music

I love Christmas music--to a point. I love singing it by myself and in church choir, I love listening to the good old classics sung by Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bing Crosby (especially his duet with David Bowie!). I love it all, but I could never spend my days listening to the radio station that only plays Christmas music. There's enough that people stress out over during the holiday season already, and I would not want to be stressed out even more by something that I usually enjoy. Every store you go into to by gifts, it seems like, is always tuned to that radio station. Most of the Christmas music I like the best though is the church stuff. I mean, that's what Christmas is, a church holiday. I've always found it so interesting how it's supposed to be about celebrating Jesus' birth, but the way we celebrate it has so many pagan influences. Christmas trees did not grow in Israel, I'm pretty sure. Santa Claus, although showing goodwill towards all people in a way that I think Jesus would be proud of, he's...well, I don't know where he came from or why.

One Christmas album I could listen to forever is "Keepers Christmas," a collection put out by Minnesota Public Radio that has simply beautiful renditions of tunes I thought I would hate--but don't-- and some very nice original ones as well. Lots of the musicians are from the Twin Cities, and if you listened to MPR's morning show, you'd recognize lots of voices, like the Steeles, the Roches, Neal and Leandra, and Butch Thompson. I think you can still buy it online and in the Minnesota Store in Mall of America. My parents have played it every year since I was little, and without even trying I could sing along with every track, it's so ingrained in my mind.

On December 13, we'll be having a big Christmas hooha/concert at our church. It's lots of fun, but being in the choir and the bell choir makes it a busy night for me and my family. It lasts about two hours or so, and my feet always hurt afterwards. The price we pay. We always sing the "Hallelujah Chorus" at the end, and the audience stands up and is given music to sing with us. It's so funny to see them try really hard to sing the parts in the beginning, then eventually fold their arms in resignation and just watch us. I don't blame 'em though, it's a hard song to sightread.

Now, Hannukah is coming up on December 11th, sundown, but I only know one song for this: "The Hannukah Song" by Adam Sandler. In this song, you basically learn the name of every famous Jewish person in showbusiness, and many creative ways to make the word "Hannukah" rhyme with everything. I'm sure it doesn't really show the true meaning of the holiday, but if you like Sandler's humor, then you'll laugh through the whole thing. But I'd rather find a Hannukah song that doesn't include the words "smoke some marijuanikah, it's time to celebrate Hannukah." Any ideas?