Holiday Wishes

So after my last post I went home and reflected on all my holidays past.

So far I've spent all my Thanksgivings and Christmases with my grandparents, my mom, my brother, my uncle, my stepdad and his family, and/or David and his family. Though we all live in the same town, I've never seen all of those people on the same holiday...

I've come to the conclusion that food, movies, TV, decorating, gifts, small and occasionally charming traditions, and lots of stress and arguing are the things that more or less sum up my holiday experiences in my nearly 19 years on earth...and a lot of those things are great. A few are aggravatingly commercialized, and the last few are infuriating and defeat the purpose of gathering together to celebrate in the first place.

So, I composed the following list of holiday wishes for the years to come, for however many I may have the liberty of celebrating:

1.) I want to celebrate with genuine people, people who love life, who appreciate it, and who know how to live it. I want to be surrounded with a small group of people that really cherish the point of it all.
2.) I want to cook holiday meals with good friends and family (whatever that may be...they tend to be one and the same for me), and enjoy food seasoned with good conversation, not just for the sake of eating it because it's the holidays.
3.) I want to look outside in the morning and see snow- legit snow. Not the occasional centimeter of cold, watery mush we get here.
4.) I want to do all the charming little traditions I've always done with someone special, somebody that appreciates and enjoys them...and to start new ones.
5.) I want to sit in front of a lit fireplace and talk about dreams and fears and memories with somebody that loves me, someone I don't have to be afraid of loving back...to share stories and make memories, to laugh and smile and reminisce late into the night.
6.) I want to do all the little things for whatever family I may have one day, to attend to the tiny details that make them smile.
7.) I want to walk along in a park and watch the sunset cuddled up on a park bench, then take shelter in some cozy little restaurant somewhere and celebrate how beautiful life can be.
8.) I want to actually talk about what we're thankful for, unashamedly.
9.) I want to build a snowman that can't be upended by a stiff breeze.
10.) I want the real gifts to be the ones in our hearts and minds, and the ones under the tree to be only mementos of them.

That is, in ten points, what I would love for at least one of my holiday seasons to be like. What this one will bring, who can say? I can't...but I have my hopes and I have my dreams, and maybe one day they'll be real.

"I like to compare the holiday season to the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending."-Fred Rogers

"From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever,
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere close to sea."-Algernon Charles Swinburne

"A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together."-Garrison Keillor