A bit of a mischievous smile is creeping onto my face. In my soul, the excitement of a child...I am breaking a rule, an arbitrary rule: listening to Christmas music before thanksgiving...As a kid, this was the rule my parents enforced, I think because they knew they would have to listen to the Raffi Christmas album about a thousand times, and hoped to buy themselves a little more auditory peace...a smart move on their behalf, but one that has me at age twenty-three with a slight feeling of guilt as Paul McCartney sings to me that he is "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time."
Adulthood continues to settle in my body, mind...these little realizations further my understanding that I can do exactly as I choose. No one will stop me from listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas album a million times this season. But there is a part of me that wants to respect the old rule. The question I must ask myself is whether I want to respect the rule out of continued childhood desire for acceptance and validation from my parents, or out of a fear that the special-ness of the music will be lost in listening to it for an extended season...
As I was about to expand on this idea that by choosing to listen to Holiday music 14 days early I, in essence, am choosing to leave childhood behind, I concluded that I may be looking a little too hard at a simple desire to listen to this music...agh, but no, christmas is this strange and mysterious thing, all this fantasy and magic, it was particularly wonderful for me as a young boy, full of belief...I wonder about my emotional response to the holiday and the season now, am I clinging to childish habits, illisionary ideals? A piece of my soul wishes to have back some of that naive optimism...the snow and magic and films depicting dreams coming true...
'tis the season for continued refleciton, I know this...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment