“Light-hearted Spirits” ; Paula/Janet
Christmas tree lights by Shandi-lee via Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-ND
Paula & Janet
“Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.” – Dr. Seuss
So many things come into mind when it’s Christmas, but all too many times, it’s centered around the act of giving and receiving….presents. However, what people should focus on in the holiday spirit is looking forward to is the 💖 heartwarming 💖 time spent with family and friends.
There are so many ways that one can get away from the commercialism and stress that surrounds the idea of having to exchange presents 🎁🎁🎁🎁. Don’t be dragged down by the thought of finding a ‘perfect gift’ because Christmas is supposed to be a light and joyful time. Because in the end, the true meaning of Christmas is love. Presents can be a way of showing love to the people you see once or twice a year, but a better present you could give them is time spent together.
There are so many ways you could take the opportunity to partake in the cheerful festivities of Christmas; hang lights with your family 👪, make gingerbread 🍞 houses with them, bake cookies 🍪 with awful looking Santa frosting designs on top, go pick out a fir tree 🎄 that you’ll struggle carrying through the doorway. Maybe the tree or lights or the cookies won’t last long, but the memories will. It’s okay to want to buy presents for your family, but like Christmas lights, the holidays are about lighting up those around you and surrounding something to make it better.
“Silent But Bustling Night”; Paula/Janet
Mariazell, Christmas Fair By Rinaldo W. via Visual hunt / CC BY
Paula & Janet
“All is calm and all is bright…sleep in heaven, heavenly peace” – Joseph Mohr
During Christmas, when snow is falling gently outside the window ❄️❄️❄️ and the crackling sound of the fire 🔥🔥🔥 can be heard over the CD playing Christmas songs, the world seems to finally be at peace. Kids in pajamas and adults gathered around a table drinking hot chocolate, it’s then that the true meaning of Christmas can be felt. The frozen stillness of the outside contrasts the joyful atmosphere of the house, but as the snowflakes keep falling and the children keep laughing, everything becomes softer and more beautiful.
And as you look outside your window, you realise that in the midst of being blanketed by the snow around you, you’re not cold because you can feel the warmth of not only the fire, but your family. Maybe it’s the ‘snow’-tinted glasses making you sentimental, or maybe it’s the song in the background that’s gotten stuck in your head, but you think that Christmas is “the most beautiful time of the year”.
“The Warmest Time Of All”
Two snowmen in garden by klimkin via Visual hunt / (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Paula & Janet
As you wake up the next morning, the sight of a snowman is the first thing you see. With its carrot-orange nose and it’s Abraham Lincoln top hat, for a split second you think it’s Frosty ☃️. Who can blame you? The two look iden-cicle.
You bundle up and run outside to play with the snowman, whom, despite being made of snow, give you flashbacks to your childhood that makes your heart warm 💓.
But as you learned from the past 2 days, maybe someone can decorate all they want in preparation for Christmas. Maybe no matter how many Christmas lights you hang, or how many classic hits you sing while the snow falls, or even how close your snowman is to becoming Frosty, maybe none of it has meaning without family.
A family gives joy.
A family cares.
A family loves.
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…Right within your heart” – Johnny Mathis
In this assignment, it was fun to choose what 3 pictures to put, but hard to make captions and think of a good theme that I wanted to write about. As it was getting close to Christmas, I thought it would be reasonable to talk about what everyone seems to have forgotten; what Christmas truly means. It’s not about about the presents or the traveling, it’s about being with family and enjoying the time you have together. So we decided to choose 3 things that symbolically have represented Christmas over the years and help the readers look perspectively look deeper into what the picture shows through the use of caption. Throughout writing this blog post, I learned that choosing the correct caption can provoke the audience to subconsciously try and find a connection between the caption and the picture, forcing them to explore the greater, overall theme.
The parts of the blog post that was easy for me was weaving the individual stories of the 3 pictures together, and giving attributions for the pictures. Since “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” and along with the holiday season, it also brings along lots of heartwarming emotions for everyone, I thought I should remind everyone that Christmas isn’t about material possession. What made this easy was that I could change the picture if it didn’t fit with my theme since I didn’t have to worry about having to keep making new MLA citations for each photo I change. The attributions are made easy by creative commons since it allows me to give credit to the author, but it doesn’t make it excessively hard to do so.