Just a Little Trim: The Weekly Hodgepodge

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Come on over to 

From This Side of the Pond 

for the Hodgepodge link-up!

 
'Tis the season to be jolly....so are you? 

I'm working on it. When my mother died last year, I never really had the opportunity to properly grieve.  At the time, it was a good thing since my responsibilities were to my family, not myself.  Then there was the task of finishing school while working and dealing with "the thing" and all that came with it.  Just so you know, I will henceforth refer to the pandemic as "the thing," since I'm so done with it.  Then there was graduation and preparing for my new side hustle as an adjunct professor.  Plus, I'm still reeling from my recent visit home to Alabama (I'll talk about that at another time).  Now that I'm settling into the holidays, the grief mixed with SAD was so overwhelming that I lost heart and almost didn't decorate or do anything holiday related.  I turned on my Spotify Christmas playlist and started decorating.  If the tears came, I let them fall.  My goal is to take that attitude through the rest of the holiday season and look for joy wherever I can find it.

Do you trim a tree this time of year, and if so is yours all done? What's something in your home-closet-life that needs to be trimmed in the new year? 

My ornament for this year

Yes, I'm pretty much done with decorating (unless I see something cool to add to my collection).

Do you really want me to go into what needs to be trimmed in my life?  Let's see:

• About 50 pounds of body weight.
• The grief I spoke of earlier.
• As I upgrade some of my "make do" items, the old items need to either be thrown away or donated.
• Mental doo-doo.
  

Are you "dreaming of a white Christmas"? Is that a possibility where you'll be celebrating? According to this site the top ten places in the US you can count on for a white Christmas are- North Pole Alaska, Crater Lake Oregon, Yellowstone National Park, Winthrop Washington, Aspen Colorado, Ketchum Idaho, Mt. Washington New Hampshire, Whitefish Montana, Duluth Minnesota, and the Lake Tahoe town of Truckee California. Of the snowy spots listed which would you most like to visit? 

My first Christmas in Colorado (2017)

I know my Alabama peeps will be shocked to hear this, but yes, I am hoping for a white Christmas.  Just not a white Christmas Eve (I want to go to church). This year, I have thoroughly enjoyed having a real autumn instead of the early October snow that ruins all the colorful foliage.  We've only had one light snow shower this month, so we are a behind on precipitation.  A white Christmas would be phenomenal.

I live about 200 miles from Aspen, but I've not yet visited there.  Since I don't know how to ski, snowboard, tube, or anything else snow related for that matter, I'd rather see Aspen in the fall when the trees present their luminous display.

December 8th is National Brownie Day...will you be celebrating? How do you like your brownies-chewy or cake-like, frosted or plain, nuts or no nuts, a piece from the middle or give me the corner? As a child were you a member of a brownie troop? 

I don't really care for brownies, so I will be abstaining.  I think the problem is that I could never make any good brownies, so I really don't know what a good brownie tastes like.  All the brownies I've had tasted too done nearly burnt and extra chewy to me even if someone else made them.

I was a Girl Scout in elementary school.  I joined in third grade, so I was a brownie for a year before moving up to junior.  I quit just after I became a cadet the summer before I started high school.

Speaking of brownie Girl Scouts, does anyone know when their annual devil biscuit sale starts in 2022?

Share a favorite line or two from a Christmas carol or holiday tune.

This is my absolute favorite version of "O Holy Night."

Insert your own random thought here:

In case you missed it:  

*My last Hodgepodge post, "I Ain't 'Fraid of No Candy Corn," is here.
*My latest Five Minute Friday post "Purpose v. 2.0," is here.
*My latest Simple Woman's Daybook "A Buggy Full of Lemons," is here.
*My latest Auntie's Workshop post "Finishing and Fixing III," is here.
*My latest 2021 Flip and Sip Reading Challenge review of Love Does, is here.