Busy

The Christmas season is upon us, and the busy/crazy ness has commenced. From last Sunday until Christmas I've got more Christmas events than I can believe. I have three holiday related events to attend before Sunday. I don't have to go to all of these events, or even any of them, however I want to go to them, the amount of them just makes things a little crazy. This is a wonderful time of year for getting together with friends and family, it just makes me wish that we could spread them out into the rest of the year a little more, rather than having them all now. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway I hope everyone out there's having a wondeful Christmas or other holiday season.

Some thoughts about Christmas

It's been a little hard to adjust to it being the Christmas season this year, we went to Boston right after Thanksgiving in what I suppose is generally the transition time. I've been listening to my Christmas music since I got back and loving it, I got my Christmas books and little decorations out before we left, and now my little college Christmas tree is up in my room, I watched our video of recorded Christmas programs on Saturday, several hours long and shows I've watched since I was a kid; but it now really feels like Christmas after the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional last night, it was wonderful!
Before the devotional I'd been enjoying traditional things of Christmas but wondering if I was enjoying too much commercialism and not enough of the real meaning of Christmas. Watching the Christmas programs on Saturday I watched The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Mickey's Christmas Carol, etc. and it was an interesting mix of commercialism and trying to get the real meaning, or meanings through. This is a wonderful time of year but I think there's a delicate balance to it that we can so easily upset. It's important to remember that, as the Grinch found out, "...Christmas doesn't come from as store...Christmas means a little bit more." or a lot more. Christmas is to remember the birth of Christ and his life, and from that to also try to act more like him, spending time with our loved ones, doing what we can for the less fortunate, and visiting those who are alone or lonely. I want to remember those things this Christmas season. Think of Charlie Brown, he was having a miserable Christmas season, but when Linus told him the real meaning of Christmas, the things that had bothered Charlie Brown before dropped away.

First Presidency Christmas Devotional

It's tonight and I'm excited!

Wexford Carol and accents

One of my favorite carols the last few years is the Wexford Carol, it's just so beautiful. What are some of your Christmas favorites?

Something from Boston that I really loved was hearing the accents, I know that different accents exist, but none the less it fills me with glee when I hear them. From the lady on the bus who was talking to her boyfriend (loud enough that the whole bus couldn't help but listen, some of us with eager interest), to the man who served us people, and the kind man who gave us directions. I loved the Boston accent.

Today's memory of Boston is the Holocaust Memorial, I guess Boston has a large Jewish community. The memorial was quite powerful, a path covered in glass with three or four glass towers and on the glass, very small, were the number of the people in concentration camps. There were soo many number, I know that should be obvious but it was a little startling to see them all together. There were also quotes from survivors, or soldiers who helped to liberate the camps. Lots of little stones on some of the stone slabs with quotes and facts, which to my understanding is the Jewish equivalent of putting flowers on a grave. I think it's important for us to remember the Holocaust and to have that little shock of realization that comes from meeting the reality of something in a history book.

As for today's Christmas music, we have several Kurt Bestor albums and probably half of them are Christmas albums. I really enjoy his style and I've grown up with this music, it's definitely a part of Christmas for me. This is his arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Enjoy.

Music and the T

I know I had the big long Boston post yesterday, but there's so much more that I didn't fit in. So I thought I might share a bit more as I go. Today, the subway, they call it the T in Boston. They have four or five lines: Red, Blue, Green, Orange, and silver but I think that one's more of an airport line. My favorite was the blue line which has nice new clean trains and nice stations but we only rode that a few times on our last day. My second favorite was the red line, still very nice trains and stations and we rode that a fair bit. The green and orange lines were pretty comprable from what I remember, we only rode the orange line once to get us to China town, but we rode the green line a lot to get us to a lot of museums etc. The green line is old and grubby, it's got terribly squeeky brakes and runs a bit more like buses do. So there you have it, my thoughts on the subway system in Boston. You can wake up now.

I also decided that I might share some of my favorite Christmas music, I realized in my years of listening to radio Christmas music at work, that I didn't grow up listening to a lot of mainstream Christmas music... if there is such a thing. You can keep I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, and Grandma got Run Over by a Reindeer, in my opinion the writers of those songs should be punished. You can also keep My Grown Up Christmas List (a little part of me died when I learned that Michael Buble had sung that song) and the Christmas Shoes. Most of my favorite Christmas music isn't played on the radio but it's beautiful. A lot of my favorites come from the Christmas concerts that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir do each year. My first song to share is from the 2008 concert with Brian Stokes Mitchell, the song is The Friendly Beasts. I was lucky enough to attend this concert and they asked us before the song started, to be quite and not laugh, etc. so that they could get a good recording, they hadn't been able to the previous evenings. I had my fist in my mouth trying not to laugh, or atleast not be audible. Enjoy

Bawston

I just got back from a lovely trip to Boston and Cambridge.It was a pretty quick trip but it was great.
Friday: On Friday we flew out and got there that evening. We didn't do much that night because it was cold and dark and we were tired but we did wander around Harvard Square and tour some of MIT.
Saturday: Saturday we went to the Harvard Natural History Museum, and that was pretty cool, but natural history museums aren't my favorite thing.We saw a bit more of Cambridge (where MIT and Harvard are, across the Charles River from Boston) and went to the MIT museum. There is some pretty cool things that they do and have done at MIT, a lot of work in robotics.We also went to the Prudential (a building/mall) where they have a really tall building and an observation deck on the top. We were there at the end of sunset and it was really pretty and cool to look down at all the buildings and people. After the Pru we went to Chinatown to a very authentic Chinese restaurant which is also apparently Zggat rated. I don't remember what the place was called but I do remember being terrified looking at the menu (I'm less than adventurous when it comes to Americanized Chinese food) but happily what I got was delicious.
Sunday: We took a brief walk through the Freedom Trail, which is a line of red brick that goes through historic Boston past historic sites. We went to church after that.
Monday: This was my favorite day of the trip, we went to the Museum of Science in the morning, had delicious pizza in a little place in the North End (Boston's Little Italy) and got canoli from Mike's Pastry (and unfortunatly this is where my camera battery died). The best part of the day, and of the trip for me was going to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, it was wonderful, except that I could hardly see all that I wanted to before the museum closed. We made a stop at the Boston Public Library, a lot of the cool stuff was closed but that building is so beautiful; also public libraries seem to have originated in Boston. We also walked through the tunnels at MIT that night (or maybe a different night, I don't remember) most of which was unexciting for me but we did pass the MIT glass lab where we stopped to gawk at some students making beautiful things out of glass.
Tuesday: Our last day in Boston we went to the Aquarium and had lunch at the Quincy (they say it Quinsy) Market. And got on the plane to head home. Our first flight was to Washington DC were we saw the White House, Lincoln Monument, the Jefferson...whatever it's called and the National Monument, all from the plane or the airport. We then got on our final plane and went home.

The Best of Boston

*Boston accents
*the buses and subway (I love reliable public transit, I don't have a lot of trust in the local public transit)
*the North End
*the Longfellow house, we didn't actually go in, we just wandered around it in the dark; the garden's probably beautiful when it's not dark or winter
*ocean and river views
*great museums etc.
*The MFA Boston - I could have happily spent the eintire trip there
*brick buildings and roads everywhere! so beautiful...a little hard on a roller suitcase though
*the Boston Public Library, that building is stunningly beautiful
*cool historic sites and great old buildings
*Canoli, delicious.
There's probably a lot more but I can't think of them now.