It's the most wonderful time of the year! Traffic jams, crowded malls, stress, deadlines, pressure to get the right gift, pressure to not max out the credit cards...see where I'm going with this???

And in the middle of all this joy, we contend with the ever popular self-righteous proclamation that we MUST not say Happy Holidays because it is Christmas.

Bah Humbug.

Hold on to your hymnals~This is as politically incorrect as I can be in 2011. The fact is that "holidays" is derived from the phrase Holy Days, and refers to feast days and prayer days as they were observed in the early Church. Period.

Now, as to the whole Christmas versus other religious holidays. Besides Kwansaa, Christmas (orginally Christ's Mass) is one of the youngest holidays. Hanukkah is much older that Christmas. Yule much older than Christmas. And don't get me started on the rituals that Christians adopted from poly-theistic civilizations to facilitate the infiltration of Christianity into the cultures.

The fact is that this season is filled with traditions that are holy to all. I don't care who says Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah, or Season's Greetings. ALL ARE GOOD. The nay-sayers to insist that this YULE must be addressed with Merry Christmas are being rather exclusive...sort of like the Sneeches who had "stars upon thars" (read Dr. Seuss); they are not playing nicely. Feel free to take your Christmas balls and go home.

So, to all, I say~ May your holidays be bright, cheerful, reflective, warm, and filled with laughter and love, and fond memories as you look to a new year. May this season bring a smile to your face and a song to your heart.

Autumn is the most fabulous time of the year. Everything is crisp, and an sense of something about to happen lingers in the air.
Smoke, fog, suspense, and the scent of suspense all conspire to make October evenings exhilerating.

That being said, something wickedly wonderful is about to happen. October 28 the questions we all want the answer to might just be answered. Did Shakespeare write all those scripts?

The trailer suggests, “we have all been played,” and that might just be the best tag line of the season. The movie asserts that the Earl of Oxford wrote the plays, not our favorite Stratford boy, that W. S. was merely used as a pawn in a game of Rulers, realms, and political intrigue.

The possibility gives new meaning to the phrase “who dunnit?”

Personally, I cannot wait! As a fan of everything Shakespearean, I don’t care who wrote the plays, I just love the language, the period, and--of course--the mystery!

Spring Cleaning

Well, it is that time, again~ we clean out our closets, we sweep the stoop, we start looking at the yard and envisioning trips to the nursery and hardware store! It is spring. What are you purging, philosophically speaking?
This year, my spring cleaning is an introspective one as well as a utilitarian one (gotta get ready for graduation week). Boxes of old notebooks scribbled in a fourth-graders hand will eventually depart the house, very much like the eighteen year old who once penned them...
And so, too, will I turn toward my next journey. For nearly a lifetime, I have focused on home and family, on the security of routine. However, with the shift of seasons this year, I am ready to turn my attention to my own new adventures. A new boss, a new story, a new approach to life, all are the markers for this leg of my path. If I am wise, I will be able to cast away old fears, insecurities, and bad habits, and find a more industrious approach to embracing my dreams.
Someone recently told me that once one commits to a dream, it becomes a reality. I doubted that at first, but have in the past few days realized the truth in it. Even in my past. My father once said that I had achieved many of my dreams; I nay-sayed him, and he reminded me that I had wanted a children's library (I then became a paraprofessional librarian in a school); that I had wanted to have a children's theatre ( I'm a drama instructor); and that I had wanted to see the world (travel industry professional for 14 years). He was right. I had managed to make my dreams reality. I had committed.
So...now I must commit to my next series of dreams. I wanted to write a book (I've written five). Now I want to move on to the next stage in publishing; I want to continue to travel; and I have a great desire to become a student once more.
Ooh, perhaps I shouldn't be so hasty about getting rid of those notebooks...