My Christmas, part 1

I love Christmas!

I’ve still got classes, but that hasn’t stopped me from decorating most of our apartement. Most Americans have probably already gotten their trees up, but that’s not tradition where I’m from. Here we wait until December 23rd. We also celebrate Christmas eve, not Christmas day. And we open the presents in the evening, not morning. I guess that sounds strange to many, but it’s pretty common in Europe.

Anyway, it’s only the tree that has to wait, so I’ve got Christmas decorations everywhere: lights and candles, red cushions in my couch, stockings by the fireplace, basically every kind of decoration that doesn’t go on the tree!

Christmas is such a great season, and such a great reminder that you should always strive to become a better person!

It’s the season of love, of giving, of family and friends. I am definitely looking forward to going home to my parents for the holidays! I work during Christmas break, but my workplace is close to my parents house, so it’ll be great to stay there.

As I said, in my country we celebrate Christmas eve, not Christmas day. I love Christmas eve. Usually I wake up, watch the good old British version of Narnia, before I go to work for 3 or 4 hours.

I always volunteer to work Christmas eve as a lot of my co-workers have children and should be able to spend Christmas with them. Anyhow, working on Christmas eve is actually a lot more fun than it sounds. I work part-time + holidays at a store, and on Christmas eve we all come to work in fancy clothes and try to make last minute Christmas shopping pleasant for our customers. It has become a nice part of Christmas.

When I’m done working, I go home and change for church. Christmas eve is the only day of the year I attend church. No one in my family attends, so I get picked up by a friend and her family. We’ve been doing it for about 6 or 7 years. Something like that.

After church, my friend and her family drives me home, just in time for the yummiest dinner of the year.

After dinner, we walk around the Christmas tree, hand in hand, while singing carols. I used to hate doing that when I was a kid. Now I love it. It’s such an amazing tradition. You should all try it with your family. It brings you closer in a way.

And then, it’s time for the presents! What a great finish to a great day!

I’m too tired to share more thoughts on this joyful season, so this post will have to be a part one.

Good night, and much love.

The beauty of religion

My first post.

I still haven’t quite decided what I’m going to do with this blog.

I think my idea is to present insight in a lifestyle that is a middle way between being religious and not being religious. I try to live my life inspired by wisdom from religion, especially Christianity (I guess that’s because it’s the religion I’m most familiar with).

I want to be a good person, a better person than I am today. And what better inspiration than Jesus Christ?

Welcome to my blog.