Handel's messiah and solar christmas lights

  Hey!

I thought I’d stop in, and say hi.

I keep rearranging words…yet I can’t seem to get into the flow of writing. My mind is full of jumbled thoughts and letters, some I can grab and pull down, and turn into something, but all the things I write for my blog feel like random words on a scrabble board. Or odd journal entries that I don’t finish.

So scrabble night it is.

                Not a blog post.

                My mom and sister love scrabble.

I. Do. Not… like scrabble.  You have to be good at spelling. 

A few times we did a scrabble game where we got to make up words, and when we set the word down, we had to describe what our made-up word meant. That was the best version of scrabble I’ve played. No shame for creating wonderful words, with meanings you assign them.

                I feel wired, and tired. My throat is a bit sore from singing.

                I’m not quite sure how it got to be this time of month.

                Christmas?

                Oh my gosh.

               Where did the month go?

               I should maybe think about doing normal Christmas things….hmmm…

              Normal? 

              Normal is not on my scrabble board, anywhere. 

            It went missing long ago.

            If I find it, I'll frame it like a photo of a friend I once knew. Maybe stare at it from time to time. 

Mostly, this month was hijacked by music, and singing in choirs. That’s a pretty good way to bring in Christmas. 

                My sister and I just got home from performing in our last performance of Handel’s Messiah. The general vibe of tonight was friendly, yet a bit fearful. Maybe heavy is more accurate feeling of tonight. 

My favorite part about singing in the Messiah is singing the Hallelujah chorus, when everyone stands up, and the drums sound. I also like the trumpet bit, but we had zero trumpets this year. My sister was in charge of helping with the Messiah on our side of the county, so last week was a totally different vibe as I was also helping my sister pin on flowers onto soloists shirts, and passing out programs. That performance started out feeling constipated of soul, then something switched, and it felt like the "Christmas spirit appeared!"

Tonight it was, and then it wasn't as much. 

                I came home and ate some clove oil, just to ward off any stray germ from being around so many people. It’s been my favorite spice of choice since October when I made some Soul cookies, and decided cloves are lovely.

                I also have enjoyed making a spicy milk tea. I mix together cloves, and turmeric, lion’s mane mushroom powder, organic cocoa powder, and cinnamon, with goat milk, and stevia. I warm it up on the stove, and drink it.  It’s very calming, and though many might think gross, I enjoy it, and find it comforting.

             I’ve been griding cloves, and putting them in my shakes, and things. And the oil, I use it often. 

                Anyhow….what the heck was I talking about?

                I told you this was a scrabble post.

Now that nearly all our Christmas music programs are all done, maybe I’ll put up the Christmas tree. 

Last year I bought a fake Christmas tree because it had snowed so much on the mountains, it wasn’t an option to get a real tree. It went against my only real tree policy, and also I think a real tree makes the air in the house feel fresh---it was the first time in the history of my house that a fake tree had been brought in.

And I guess, it will probably be what I’m putting up this year.  So, it's one more tree not chopped. It’s weird but I really enjoy not trying to figure out how to make our real tree stay upright. One year we had it tip over multiple times…oh my gosh. I’d wake up in the morning and wonder if we’d have to redecorate it yet again.

One thing I did do ahead of time for Christmas was buy some solar Christmas lights. I strung them around my yard and lit them up on Thanksgiving. Becoming one of “those” people who welcome in Christmas just as Thanksgiving ends.

                Can I just say, solar Christmas lights are wonderful! One meager benefit from our lovely the forest of trees being cut down is that my front yard has tons more light.  So my solar lights now have plenty of sun to charge.

My mom liked the solar lights so much she bought another box for me to find homes for.

                                                         I.           Solar lights are so much easier to string up.

                                                       II.           You don’t have to use extension cords.

                                                     III.            You don’t have to overload the electrical system with too many light strands all feeding into each other.

                                                    IV.            You don’t have to be strategic and make the lights codependent. They are their own little solar system.

                                                      V.            Solar lights can be placed anywhere, as long as the sun can find them.

                                                    VI.            The creative possibilities are mind-blowing!

                And it’s so fun.

                I spent the day before thanksgiving actually really enjoying putting up the rest of the strands I hadn’t already strung up. It was sunny, and so satisfying to get them all up. When it gets dark, they can turn themselves on. And those itty bitty lights shine brilliantly. I don’t know how many years I have fretted over lights, and this year was not one of them.

                At least the first time I put them up….

                It was a breeze!

                Until….

                                Yeah….

                                                You were waiting for me to say that.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Until…my goats discovered how delicious Christmas lights are.

                Yes.

                They like Christmas lights.           

                Solar Christmas lights.

                Munching them, along with tree leaves. Apparently copper wire and Christmas lights make a great electrifying side dish.

                                If you asked the goats how the lights tasted, they would say they taste sparkly, like stars, and sunlight, like gingerbread and Christmas.

                                The first strand to become a Christmas feast was the strand I strung on their fence. Yes, that was a ‘brilliant’ idea. But I wanted to light the way to the barn as I’m always walking out there in the dark, and it looked so magical.

                                Sigh…

                                Past tense. Looked.

                                I didn’t know how much they enjoyed my lights until I noticed my path was dark. I did a close inspection and found the wire detached from the solar panel, chewed on.  And then I noticed that they had munched it in four or five places, split the wire into frayed bits.

You’d think they were deficient in copper, because they seemed to use it like floss.

I brought in the strand of lights, and tried fixing them, as they are mostly copper wire, and little solar lights.  So far, I haven’t gotten them to work.

In meantime, I had fenced the goats off from getting into my ice-skating area, so I could work on that.

So what did the goats do?  They flooded into my yard, and began uprooting my other Christmas lights, and munching them, snipping them in half, and eating them.

It was a far cry from my lovely lit up yard of Thanksgiving. It felt like, one by one, the light in my yard was diminishing.

                I pretty much restrung every working strand of lights, moved them to higher ground, and have them now---out of danger, we hope----!

                My yard is lit up once again!

As penance for eating Christmas lights, I hope the light munchers become enlightened, and perhaps glow in the dark. Who knows, maybe St. Nicholas might think them useful and use them for his magical sled. But I’d have to tell him to keep his bag of goodies away from their mouths, because they might eat everything in it.