...declared Seth the other day. He refers to the fact that I have been listening to Christmas music since a couple days before Halloween. And I won't apologize. Some of the most beautiful music ever written is Christmas music; why should I only get to hear it for three weeks in December? That's simply not long enough. I exercised tremendous discipline to wait until just before Halloween, and I should be congratulated.
Hardly anyone loves Christmas more than I do. Although I start the music early, I never feel like the actual season begins until after the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, always the first Sunday in December. I still wish it were the way it used to be, with literally the First Presidency and only the First Presidency speaking, but I still love it and thoroughly enjoyed watching last evening.
So let the season begin!
How are my projects coming along, you want to know? (Maybe you don't, but humor me):
- Christmas cards printed.
- Christmas letter written and printed, to be copied tomorrow, so cards can be mailed out.
- Shopping maybe 3/4 done? Something like that. Oooh, how I love shopping!
- Wrapping 100% caught up. Now I just need more presents to wrap.
- New 9 ft. tree set up and beautifully trimmed.
- House decorated
- Baking day set, and recipe selection underway.
- #LIGHTtheWORLD daily Christmas focus - Seth and I are on track with Day 5 today (we are both organ donors).
- Semester finished? Not quite. And speaking of school....
When I was in college, if students needed to ask their teacher a question, they pretty much had one choice: wait until the next class and come a bit early or stay after. Amazing, huh? We all still managed to get educated. We progressed in our studies, learned stuff, earned our degrees, went out into the world to use them, all without the benefit of 24/7 access to our teachers.
Because of this, we also felt compelled to make the very most out of that precious class time, taking copious amounts of notes. Yes, it's true. We came to class with paper and pens and actually wrote stuff down. We listened to the teacher and tried to comprehend what he said. We tried to sculpt out the most important ideas and then commit them to our notes. College classes were, indeed, active learning experiences.
This all must sound like science fiction to today's college students. Most don't ever write down anything, because they expect all course content to appear in the management system, which they can access online. And if they have questions, they can just email me, and if I don't reply within two hours, they can email me again asking if I received their first email.
Okay, that was sort of a long rant. Sorry. I have lovely students, really, and I enjoy them most of the time, but there was a moment today when I told them I felt like the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons: "Wa, wawawa.....wawawa." They just laughed at me and took pictures with their phones of a couple things I had on the board, which is the closest they come to taking notes.
Enjoy this glorious season, everyone. This year, we even get to attend church. I love, love, love it when Christmas falls on Sunday. And this time, Gerald and I get to narrate the musical program that morning. How excited am I? Very!
Meanwhile, go listen to some Christmas music. Seth says you're allowed to now.
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