12 days of blogging Christmas...day 12

That's it..we're just one day away from Christmas.

Unlike the previous years, when I had my whole family with me, tradition changed a bit this year: I'll spend Christmas Eve with one of my best friends. 

 My man's abroad.

My son's with the dark side - his father, that is.

My parents didn't want to come over.

  So that leaves

to...

so to speak.

All I can think of is that...it's just different. 

When I was young, I always dreamed of having a party at my house with friends and family.

Now, however, I understand that, for Christmas, we can have one or the other. At least, in my case.

Merry Christmas to all of you, wherever and with whoever you may be!

 

12 days of blogging Christmas...day 11

Day 11

    Today should've been a day when I'd be lying on my living room couch, covered with a warm blanket, watching a bad...ish Christmas movie and sipping from an obscenely large cup of coffee.

  This is what people (lazy like me) should be doing once they're done with their Christmas shopping. 

But did I get to do that??? 

  Of course not.

     Instead, I sat on my office chair and tried to make it look like I was actually working. 

      It was so damn hard cause there was a general lack of mood. Everyone found reasons to get up : 

    go see people for a fake issue or something that could've been solved over Skype

chat a bit

 drink some water 

realize coffee is needed, so run to the coffee machine

chat again

and so on...

Oh then lunch break...

Coffee break...

Toilet break...

At some point, I had this crazy idea...

    But...I thought this through and realized I'd just end up paying for shit and work on another computer for the rest of the day.

      To make the day go faster, I ate enough chocolate to know that I'd be dead if I were a diabetic and drank enough coffee to stay up for at least 2 days straight.

  Buuuut, since I've been on a sex diet (and by that I mean - I had NONE OF THAT and not by choice) for the last month, I can honestly say that : 

THERE WILL BE MORE CHOCOLATE AND COFFEE, SO HELP ME GOD!

   9 hours, 1000 g of chocolate, 1500 ml of coffee later, it was finally time to go home and watch that damn Christmas movie. 

    Instead, Gladiator was on, so....

PS: Hey, Christmas, are we there yet? 

12 days of blogging Christmas...day 10

      Tonight I introduced my son to Charles Dickens's, "A Christmas Carol". We saw the 2009 movie.

He liked it, but hey...What can I say?  It wasn't Pokemon.

 

I actually carry on with the tradition of watching Christmas movies during this time of year. Few days ago we saw Home alone 3, for the 47th time. 

   

    The most important thing is that, at the end, he understood the idea: he understood that one has to give something back, that one can change lives if they care enough.

 

    I was, however, impressed once more by Dickens's idea, over 170 years ago. I read it first while I was in high school and loved it...over 170 years ago :-P Then saw a million movies based on it.

    How wonderful to write a story of kindness and humanity by turning to the three regions of time: past, present and future.

  The novella talks about change - the main character, "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner" changes into someone capable of love, joy, generosity, and compassion.

    I'm someone who does not believe in people, who lacks trust, who always sees the bad first, but I am capable of appreciating genuine good things when given to me by the right people.

 Otherwise, I wonder if I need to see my own ghosts...

 

12 days of blogging Christmas...day 9

Help - make it easier or possible for (someone) to do something by offering them one's services or resources.

   There's no definition for helping oneself though, no user manual, but it's still one of the things that I'm trying to learn along with my son and some of my friends. 

  As far as I see, I'm getting good at it cause

I believe very strongly in the power and ability to help ourselves. 

But we don't always do it, cause it's so damn hard. 

It's actually easier, from my perspective, to help others.

   But we don't always do that either. 

I believe that, being able to help ourselves gives us freedom.

Because, what is better than not depending on others for anything?

But only some of us seem to chase this freedom. 

Why?

Could it be that the fake Freud quote is actually true?

 That freedom = responsibility and people flee responsibility?

   The R word is indeed a word used by grownups in their world and, many of us are still struggling in it.

P.S.: Would it work if I just decided to help myself become a millionaire? Probably it'll take more than just deciding, right? Aaaaand that's the difference right there, between me and the 19 year old who's the CEO of the coolest brooms startup something...Already asking too many questions.

  

12 days of blogging Christmas...day 8

     Why do we

Believe in others rather than ourselves.

Believe in stories and fairy tales.

Believe in lies rather than the truth.

     Why do we make our children

 We do teach them to believe in

and follow them, but at the same time we tell them about a fat man, with a long white beard, dressed in red, who, somehow reaches all the children of the world in one night and comes down the chimney carrying gifts.

 Do you ever wonder if it's a choice for them? Do they CHOOSE to believe in

?

Are we still children with the choice to believe that, at some point, we will have that magic in our lives? 

     That we're entitled to it?

That we deserve it?

Look at us, all grown up, choosing to believe that, around Christmas, magic and miracles can and will happen.

 And you? What do you

 

in?

Will it ever come true?

 

12 days of blogging Christmas...Day 7

I will start by saying a 

 to my friend Sheila Bliss , who took a little of that precious thing called time to put her thoughts about Christmas on paper (what? it's still paper to me) and share it with us.

  You can read it here :

http://authorsheilabliss.blogspot.ro/2016/12/its-christmas-time.html

     Despite everything, the internet is a wonderful thing, wouldn't you agree?

     It allowed a complete stranger to put a big smile on another stranger's face with words and thus, we are no longer strangers.
     We've become two people connected by a positive thought.

     Isn't it simple? 

         Why do we always choose to complicate everything? 

   While you search for the answer to that, today there was KIDZILLA's school Christmas play. 

   Unlike the previous years, everything lasted 45 minutes and I didn't have to see all the other classes before him. 

        Thank God and Big Bang for that! 

   Cause, with all due respect for those who have small children..like...really small, you haven't known pain until you've seen kindergarten kids sing.

     that's how bad it was for me..I'm sorry.

Call me a bad mom, but, besides the pleasure of seeing my own kid singing or at least pretending to and taking a million pics that I'll probably look at when he's 25, the entire thing is pure torture for parents.

   And for those of you who say: "nooo, it's the cutest thing ever" ...trust me, you're in denial.

      Once the singing and dancing was over - and it was quite nice, to be honest - we moved to the gym to buy the stuff (Christmas decorations and other things that needed explaining) our children had crafted. 

       I stopped at two cause I was out of cash (What?? I was).

Loads of homemade cookies from mothers who are more devoted to this than I am. 

       I know that, at some point, I will have to be that kind of Stepford mom, right? At least once in my kid's life. 

  And speaking of Kidzilla, here's one of his favorite Christmas carols that I've had on repeat these days: