even though it's november...

bonjour ladies and gentlemen!

I am writing to you as one of the newest members of the BYU chapter of PsiChi (the Psychology Honor Society). I know, pretty exciting! The induction ceremony was tonight. They had dinner (aka a table with food) and then gave a presentation about the organization and our responsibilities as members, and then inducted us and gave us certificates, very similar to the one pictured here, which I doctored for you, so you could get the full effect :) I also got a lapel pin and a "lifetime membership card". That brings my honor society memberships up to 3: National Honor Society, Tri-M Honor Society, and now PsiChi. I don't know what I'm going to do with all the lapel pins...

The whole thing was about as classy as the Tri-M induction... so you can imagine. Except without the audience, since people at college don't really have family to come watch.

I also took a test on Tuesday and got a 98! That's up from 96 on the last one for this class. Tomorrow I go in for English to read my mid-term paper to my professor and get him to grade it. I'm pretty much scared out of my skin. I might pee on the floor or something. Which isn't even very funny because it has been known to happen... ask my siblings about Sam's Club.

In other news, I may have turned my radio to the permanent Christmas music station last week.

And I may have created a Holiday music radio station on Pandora, which I'm listening to now.

I remember living at home, and mom used to say that Christmas decorations shouldn't come up before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving just gets ignored as Christmas takes center stage starting right after Halloween. I used to agree with her. The season isn't special if you celebrate it for 3 months of the year.

But once I came to college, and over the years, I have found myself celebrating Christmas earlier and earlier. My freshman year, we started Christmas after Thanksgiving- I was the only one staying at the apartment over the break, so I decorated it all Christmas-like for my roommates to come home to. Last year a Christmas tree ended up in our living room sometime right after Thanksgiving- not yet December. And this year, well, as I've already confessed, I've started the christmas music. I can't help myself. I think it's because when I lived at home, I could afford to wait for Christmas to come. There were decorations and everything, and Christmas "started" when all the decorations were up and the house was cheerily Christmas-ed out with garland and marching bands and little houses and nativity sets, complete with kid art on the walls. Megan and I were the last ones living at home, so we got to do it longer than the other siblings. We cut down the tree and liked to watch it being set up, but avoided having to be the "straightness supervisor"- "a little to the left. no, a little back to the right. more. more. too far." ... while Dad tried to maneuver it with pine needles sticking into him everywhere and patience waned.

Now that I don't live at home, I don't get to see the house decorated. I don't get to be a part of the build-up of Christmas. Christmas doesn't start until Christmas break, which this year is sometime around the 20th of December. So, Christmas to me starts later than it ever had while living at home. So because I can't take out the decorations, and I can't pick out the tree, and I can't carry box after box down from the attic, I don't get to have all the physical Christmas around, so I have to find my own way of bringing Christmas to my life: radio stations. And who cares if I start in November?? And who cares if I post pictures of my house all dressed up for Christmas because it makes me happy?

So as I listen to my Christmas music, I have noticed one artist that sang The Christmas Song- saying "tiny tots with their eyes all aglow will" ... find it hard to sleep tonight? NO! it said something else that I can't remember now. This story would be cooler if I could remember the wrong lyric. But anyway- it was disconcerting- someone recorded the song singing the wrong words?! Hmmm. One guy just sang "where the treetops glisten and the kiddies listen"... it took me a full second or two to realize he was not talking about felines.

Anyway- so, I've had a true Christmas change of heart- please, put up your Christmas tree two days after Thanksgiving. Let the stores get their Christmas displays out weeks before Thanksgiving. I don't mind. I'll turn on my Christmas music and walk around with "it's beginning to look a lot like christmas" in my head for weeks, happily. Because all these signs of Christmas mean school is almost over. It means snow and Coca-Cola polar bear commercials, and mittens, and christmas lights on houses. But most of all, it means I'm going home soon.

... at least it usually does. This year I'm not going home for Christmas. This was how Christmas in Idaho in a cabin was pitched to me:
mom: "What do you think about Christmas?"
me: "What do you mean?"
mom: "What do you think about not having Christmas at home?"
me: "... but I want to go home. The house is always decorated and we've never had Christmas away from home."
mom: "Well, you could have Christmas at home with your three brothers, which would be really boring"
me: silence
mom: "Or you could have Christmas in Idaho and have both your sisters there and all your siblings and family together."
me: silence
mom: "Don't you want the family to be together?"
me: "yes, mom."

So Christmas in Idaho it is. I'm sure my opinion was not the only one sought on the subject, but that was how it was pitched to me. So I don't get to go home this year. I will miss getting to see the people I only get to see when I'm home. I don't get to leave Provo after finals, and do the whole airport thing. I don't get to see all the christmas lights out the plane window in all the little towns where the Whos lay a-snooze. The house won't be decorated. But the family will be together I suppose. And, as I've learned after 19 years of hearing How The Grinch Stole Christmas read on Christmas Eve, you can't stop Christmas from coming (it CAME!). It'll come "without ribbons, without tags! Without packages, boxes, or bags" and all that. And as the Grinch learns, so I have learned "Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more".

Of course, if I stay on track with the Grinch there, the next step is to do some whizzing through the air... so I better go.

And I will listen to my Christmas music and wait for Christmas to come. And I'll just skip "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas".

until again,
mollie

p.s.- this was supposed to be a short entry... sorry.

p.p.s.- did you know that the Grinch is not green in the book? Movie people colored him green in the 1966 cartoon and he's been green ever since...