Malakalekemaka...or however you spell that

That song is kind of weird but that word has been sing-song stuck in my head throughout the Christmas season. That, plus the choruses to Love the Way You Lie, Let Your Rain Flow, and all of the songs from White Christmas. I thought about writing a deep reflection - and wrote a few drafts - on this particular Christmas and on Christmases in general, but I think I'll just comment on a few random silly somethings.

I realized that my favorite part of Christmas is the lights. I really love them, love them, love them! I'm not sure why. They are the same general concept as street lights, lamp lights, head lights - and I don't necessarily love those things. But I love Christmas lights! They are white and yellow-white and red and blue and green and orange and all strung together in a pretty little line of magical goodness. I slept on the couch this Christmas (having spent it in CT with the immediate familia) and on Christmas Eve I left the Christmas tree lights on all night just because I could.

I only have flashes of Christmas memories: go-carting one year with my cousins, GG Nor getting the grab-bag gag gift one year (have you ever had to explain edible underwear to your great-grandmother?), my first GPS (because I got lost on my way to T-giving that year), an Etch-A-Sketch. Most of my memories, though, are one hazy, soft-focus lensed amalgamation of Christmas Eves. I can easily say it is in the soft place in my heart, a bright light joyful feeling I can always rely on to be there. It's not that my family is any more special or amazing than anyone else's, it's just that, well, I love my extended Knippel family for better and for worse. And Christmas Eve is when we have all traditionally gathered for a night of eating, playing, dancing, joking, catching up, and drinking Rosemary's toxically spiked egg nog.

One year in the not-too-distant past, Christmas day fell on a Sunday. I boycotted Christmas that year because the day we celebrate Christ's birth had the audacity to fall on a day in which I had to get up and go to church, instead of on a day when it should have fallen: any other day in which I did not have to get up and go to church. Priorities, anyone?