Christmas 2024

Christmas Prompts 2024

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Here are some prompts from my vaults that you could use during the Christmas Holidays.

I’ve had fun with them in the past, so give them a whirl!

AI Artwork: Pumpkin Empress

  1. What is your first memory of Christmas? Describe it in detail.
  2. What is your favorite holiday tradition from childhood?
  3. What’s the best Christmas gift you’ve ever received?
  4. What memories do you have of Christmastime in elementary school?
  5. How would you describe childhood holidays in one word? Why?
  6. Who is involved in your favorite Christmas memories? Are you still connected with them?
  7. Write about the best gift you’ve ever given. Who was it to? How did they react?
  8. Did you believe in Santa? How long? Was this a positive experience for you?
  9. What was your favorite Christmas decor as a child?
  10. What was your favorite Christmas movie when you were younger? Do you still watch it?
  11. What holiday traditions from childhood do you still do?
  12. Describe your best Christmas morning ever.
  13. Make a Venn diagram of Christmas as a kid and Christmas now. How is it the same? How is it different?
  14. Write about a time that you felt the Christmas spirit take over.
  15. Describe an ideal day at Christmastime as a kid.
  16. What emotions do the holidays bring up for you?
  17. Who do you miss most around the holidays?
  18. What parts of the holidays do you enjoy? What do you not enjoy? Why?
  19. Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts? Why?
  20. Make a grown-up Christmas list of non-tangible wishes. What do you wish for the world? For yourself?
  21. What brings you stress around the holidays?
  22. How are the holidays special?
  23. If you could invite anyone to Christmas dinner, dead or alive, who would you invite?
  24. Is there anything that makes you sad around Christmas? What is it? Why?
  25. Do you feel nostalgic during the holidays? For what? Why?
  26. How do you feel about commercialism during the holidays?
  27. Do you raise/want to raise your family with any of the same holiday traditions you had? Which ones? Why or why not?
  28. How can you be more giving during the holidays?
  29. In what ways can you spread holiday cheer to others?
  30. Who adds joy to your holiday season?
  31. In what ways can you spread holiday cheer to others?
  32. Who adds joy to your holiday season?
  33. How do you connect to others during the holidays?
  34. What do you feel most grateful for at Christmastime?
  35. Describe what Christmas means to you.
  36. What’s on your Christmas list this year?
  37. Make a movie check list Christmas ist to watch this year.
  38. Describe your ideal Christmas morning in detail.
  39. If you could have anything for Christmas, what would it be? (Pretend money isn’t a factor!)
  40. What is your favorite holiday-specific activity?
  41. Make a December bucket list.
  42. If you were Santa, what would your uniform be? (Ditch the red suit! What are you wearing instead?)
  43. Think of a new holiday tradition to start with your family.
  44. Write your own version of the 12 Days of Christmas song. What would you want for each day?
  45. Make a list of your top 10 Christmas songs.
  46. Write a cheesy Christmas love story. Get creative!
  47. What does “holiday spirit” mean to you? What does it look like?
  48. If you were Santa, what snack would you want to be left for you? (Doesn’t have to be milk and cookies!)
  49. Are you journaling this Christmas to boost your spirits? Relive old nostalgic holiday memories? Feel the full effects of Christmas spirit?
  50. Write a Christmas newsletter from your Dog- or Cat’s or houseplants point of view.

Locked Away

/ animar64 / Leave a comment

Photo A.M. Moscoso
” Upside Down House “
Wisconsin, Dells
October 2024

I celebrate Christmas, but I don’t celebrate it if you know what I mean.

I really used to love it- the decorating, the music, baking, shopping for presents.

Then I found out my life was a lie, and then POOF the magic was gone.

The funny thing is, I’m not sad about this situation.

What I feel is anger.

Charles Dickens and A Few Ghosts

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Throw Back Post that I think is fun- it’s about Christmas and the tradition of telling ghost stories during the winter months:

Illustration by French impressionist Édouard Manet for the Stéphane Mallarmé translation of “The Raven”, 1875

Did you know that it was on bleak December evening that the Raven made his way into a scholar’s  home, that in the dead of winter the Raven took it’s place above his chamber door where it perched on a bust of Pallas and drove the unnamed narrator of the poem stark raving mad?

I think everyone should know this because during the Victorian Era, telling ghost stories was the thing to do on those long, cold, dark evenings. When you look at it that way you can see that  the Raven a Christmastime Ghost story as opposed to  the Halloween story it has been morphed into.

The Raven (Le corbeau): Flying Raven (ex libris)
Édouard Manet1875

My own family would tell ghost stories during the winter- with the bulk of them being told during our Christmas gatherings.

We would always find a way to work stories about the supernatural  into our gatherings, but during the winter there was a a tradition we followed without even realizing it.

We specifically told ghost stories- and all of them if you were to ask- were absolutely true.

Every winter there has been a slew of articles popping up on line advocating for bringing this tradition back.

If you aren’t into telling stories at gatherings, there are books with stories from the Victorian Era that focus on ghost stories that were told during Christmas/ Winter  that you can pick up and enjoy  instead:

I love this one:

The first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals

During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume.

Along with planning my family’s holiday meal- and as I cook and shop and hope for snow, I am also planning on what stories ( or Whoppers as my Grandpa Bert would call them ) I will be telling.

Here is a link to a great article about this tradition. It’s from 2017 and it’s informative and a great read- who knows? Maybe you’ll be inspired to try this out yourself:

A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories

Must Be The Season

/ animar64 / 7 Comments

Last weekend I was feeling out of sorts, so I decided to pull out my Christmas tree lights to see if they needed replacing ( which they did, but I had two extra boxes for situations like that, so problem solved. ) and then I decided while I was at it, I should probably give my tree a going over because it’s in sad shape last year and if it needed replacing I had plenty of time to do that.

I put it together. I stood back. I wondered if my neighbors would notice if I tossed the entire tree into the trash, or if I should do the right thing and take it apart first.

What I saw after  I assembled it  was that my tree was mashed on one side because I had re-packed it wrong, but then I thought- oh what the Hell. It’s got character.

So went ahead and decorated it because I really didn’t want to take it apart again. I didn’t want to make a sneaky run to the dumpster.  I mean, it was up and the lights were working so…let’s do this!

Not bad, I told myself when I had finished decorating it. Not bad at all.

Oh. Yeah. Krampus is my Christmas Tree Star.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
November 10., 2024

Over the years Hamish Macbeth has learned that when the tree is up and decorated it’s time for him to get his picture taken- which isn’t his favorite thing in the world to do but cookies are involved so he gives in.

This year he hit his mark without me asking and I was so happy I snapped his pictures super fast.

Photo A.M. Moscoso Hamish Macbeth November 10, 2024

I want to have something to celebrate and even the people I thought would be dancing in the streets aren’t dancing in the streets. They’re sitting in front of their TV’s and laptops, their phones  clenched in one hand, a red cap in the other and they are waiting to hear the world is perfect now. They’re going to be sitting there for a very long time.

Last Halloween wasn’t exactly a fun time for me ( which is odd ). On my birthday  ( aka Election Night ) the Monsters on Maple street arrived- and not in a fun way that monsters show up during the Halloween Season.

I’m not sure what Christmas will be like next year. All I know is that I have learned my lesson from the Halloween that wasn’t- is that want to find a way to celebrate Christmas- and I’ve decided to do it by jumping into it feet first.

Too bad I won’t be rewarded with a cookie or two.

RDP Tuesday: SEASONAL