Happy Holidays!

Hello my fellow students. My how the time flies when you're having fun. The semester is over and now we can all breathe! Do you feel that? It's the sweet feeling of freedom raining down on us.

The holidays are approaching quickly... too quick for my taste (you guessed it, my Christmas shopping is not finished). This is my favorite time of year. I'm a sucker for bright and shiny objects, so when I see a house light up like a Christmas tree...let's just say I'm worse than a kid in a candy store. My eyes light up and my smile is so big I think it swallows my face. Oh and I giggle - Yeah it's that bad.

But I also love all the food, the cozy sweaters and gift buying for loved ones.

Now that I think about it, this is my favorite time because of the traditions my mom and I shared. I come from a single-parent-only-child household. For us money was ALWAYS scarce but my mom never failed to make Christmas a magical time for me.

One of my favorite memories is from when I was about eight or nine years old. See my mother used to torture me with Christmas music. I suffered through Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole (although I liked him), Christmas with the Judds (country xmas music), and some other random mixed CDs she came across at Target.

So of course to get back I would sing to each and every song as though I were Snow White... anyone remember what her voice sounds like? If not, here's a short clip. Can you hear that slight annoying shutter in her voice? Yeah imagine that but ten times louder, more annoying and to xmas music. I would also make up dances but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, for years I put up with the music and for years she put up with my singing. Until one year our CD player broke. Naturally you'd think I'd be rejoicing, shouting from the roof tops and thanking the heavens for sparing me the never ending torture of Christmas music. It was quite the opposite, I was more upset than my mother. I believe my exact words were, "what do you mean there's no music!" So I demanded that we buy a cheap little player cause despite hating the music it wasn't Christmas without the torture.

We didn't have music that year and we survived. But the following year I was so excited to have the music back I started playing the CDs at Thanksgiving. Needless to say I tortured my mother that year.

I guess the moral of story is regardless if I hated hearing the music, it still became a tradition. A tradition, unknown to even myself, was not willing to see go. So every year I listen to the same CDs that were around when I was young. We still laugh to this day about it, and yes she still makes me do the dances.

I hope that you all have a tradition that will last a lifetime. And may you all have a wonderful holiday season.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! See you in the Spring.

Stay classy FC,

Janet