Joy Luck. Merry Merry Christmas.

I realize Christmas is coming up, but for some reason I'm just reminded just how thankful I am.
I'm not really sure why this Christmas I'm suddenly so excited, but I absolutely adore Christmas. It's like... a fuzzy fat cute little bunnie that I want to cuddle and just love over. Sure, I'm not religious.. at all... but the just oh Christmas. It's just lakjdfajflaj! it's about giving, about celebrating, about being together. I just love it! and it's just ahh I don't know but I Just LOVE Christmas.I never have celebrated it, and maybe thats why I'm so excited. But even though it's little things like putting up just a string of lights in the dorm living room, getting a little Christmas tree, I'm just so excited. I don't even want to concentrate on finals (example, writing this). But oh I love it. It's makes me feel giddy ... and.. really happy..

I have this big list of things I want do this Christmas!

Though, even though how excited I been this year.... this week's postsecrets reminded me of how lucky I am. And reminded me of just how Christmas isn't always something happy for everyone, and maybe instead only reminders of how things used to be... or things could be, or only painful reminders of lonely.. scary.. and bad memories we rather forget.. of what isn't there anymore. Reminders of change, and not always good ones. I guess you could say it was humbling.
I don't know.. but... it just reminded me of how lucky I am. How I been given so much. And it reminded me of one of my favorite books, The Joy Luck Club (by Amy Tan).

The Joy Luck Club, was for each week "one of us would host a party to raise money and to raise our spirits. The hostess had to serve speicial dyansyin foods to bring good fortune of all kinds- dumpling shaped like silver money ingots, long rice noodles for long life, boiled peanuts for conceiving sons, and of course many good-luck oranges for plentiful, sweet life.
"What fine food we treated ourselves to with our meager allowances! We didn't notice that the dumplings were stuffed mostly with stingy squash and that the oranges were spotted with wormy holes. .....
We knew we had luxuries few people could afford. We were the lucky ones."
-p.10

"People thought we were wrong to serve banquets every week while many people in the city were starving, eating rats and later, the garbage that the poorest rats used to feed on....
Hnnnh! How could we laugh, people asked.
"It's not that we had no heart or eyes for pain. We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. How much can you wish for a favorite warm coat that hangs in the closet of a house that burned down with your mother and father inside it? How long can you see in your mind arm and legs hanging from telephone wries and starving dogs running down the streets with half-chewed hands dangling from their jaws? What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness?
"So, we decided to hold parties and pretened each week had become the new year....
We weren't allowed to think a bad thought. We featsted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that's how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck.""
-p.11-12.


Thank you postsecret. For helping me remember. I can't seem to ever thank enough. I been given so much, I'm so incredibly

lucky... how can I even waste this by holding back, by calling myself a failure, or hurting myself like I have before and still do in degrees. How could I ever be so selfish... when so many people are hurting in ways I can't ever understand.
Thank you and I'm sorry; these two phrases I feel like I can't ever say enough.

I'm sorry... I'm sorry I'm sorry.. for anyone out there who feels alone, who isn't looking foward to Christmas and is hurting and suffering. Who is battling and struggling in darkness alone. Please know that you are not alone, because that is a lie. And we're not meant to be alone.

This Christmas I want to give back to someone.
I want to make a difference for someone this Christmas.
Pay it forward.

I'm Thankful for:
-my wonderful amazing loving family who I don't appreciate enough (not anywhere close)
-Eric Banizaman
-Andrea Peters (always&forever)
-Friends who I can talk to anything about and be silly and play neopets with, and stalk people on FB with... and do stupid and retarded things without being called stupid or retarded ..
-the wonderful wonderful people in my life
-Postsecret
-Christmas
-The people I work with who are amazing even though I'm really quiet
-Good Professors
-good books
-FOOD&recipes
-the internet
-to write love on her arms.
-joy. love.
-good movies | movie nights
-good conversation
-the way my life is going
-bunnies&cute things
-my parents
-my brother (yes. i repeated.)
-my accent in Chinese
-my flaws

I want to celebrate, and celebrate often.
Because, we are the lucky ones.

you.are.beautiful.
&& loved.

forever,
jennifer