I'm on a quest to locate that Christmas spirit that seems to have gone missing in the last few years. I need to start creating new holiday traditions instead of relying on old ones. In order to help me along the way, there are a few things that are essential and that I simply cannot relinquish.
Number 1 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Candles- And lots of them. There will be candles everywhere in this apartment. A room can look crappy, messy or bare, but when you light a few candles in it, it makes all the difference in the world.
Number 2 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Baking - The joint will smell like a truck transporting cinnamon just collided with a vanilla truck, and the cargo busted open and mixed in the wind. An added plus will be bringing some to a friend's house on Christmas Eve. Yes, how homespun and nice is that!
Number 3 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: The Christmas tree - Which has yet to be purchased. This year we're going for an artificial tree. We've had real trees the previous years we've lived here but every single year it just makes me so sad I can't stand it. To chop down a tree, bring it into our house, decorate it and then suddenly throw it out so that it can lay there abandoned and await a slow death. No thanks! However, a Christmas tree is essential. No Christmas without it. While I decorate it I plan to have Christmas music playing in the background, which brings me to number 4...
Number 4 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Christmas music - Particularly "Oh Holy Night", "Silent Night" and "The Christmas Song", the Nat King Cole version.
Number 5 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: The movie "Foul Play" and "The Tales of Beatrix Potter". I know that the former sounds like an odd choice of Christmas movie, but it's actually an ancient tradition of mine. Coincidentally, "Foul Play" was shown on T.V around December 21st a few years in a row when I was a kid. I watched it with the freshly decorated Christmas tree in the same room and the smell of my mom's hyacinths, which she always put out in the living room for Christmas. Now, this movie has become synonymous with childhood Christmases, and I make a point to watch it around December 21st, with hyacinths on the coffee table. As for "The Tales of Beatrix Potter", this ballet was on T.V every December 23rd when I grew up, and I always used to watch it. It would be on around 3:00pm, and it would be getting very dark outside. The coffee table would be filled wit nuts and clementies, and wonderfully smelling hyacinths of course. While my parents were either out Christmas shopping or my was cooking, I would be lost in the fantasy world of Beatrix Potter, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the presents that had by now appeared underneath the tree.
Number 6 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Hyacinths!
More may be added as we get closer to Christmas, and I get more in touch with my Christmas muse. I think a definite theme here is childhood. Never do we enjoy Christmas the way we do when we're kids. It'll never be the same again but one can at least try and recapture some of it.
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