Hi people! 🙂
Perhaps you remember that I was sharing a lot of Enya’s music last year around Christmas with you. I was sure I must have shared this song, but looks like I haven’t, so I think it’s the right time to do it now, since this is primarily an Advent hymn! And I think in Enya’s version it sounds so extremely beautiful. Both full of some silent, secret euphoria, as well as nostalgia. I hope you like it too. 🙂
Hi guys! 🙂
So it’s Advent, and Christmas is coming, so we can listen to our favourite Christmas music again! This is one of my personal absolute winter classics. And Jack Frost is one of my favourite characters in European folklore. He has arrived here for good as it seems, so I am welcoming his with this lovely little song, hoping you will like it too. Kate Rusby is also one of my most favourite English folk singers, she’s really amazing! I love her voice and her accent, most people who know her seem to love her accent haha, and she does this song so very well. It just makes my brain melt. 🙂
Hi people! 🙂
I’m so excited to let you all know that My Inner Mishmash Readership Awards have already arrived to two of the winners – Carol Anne and her system of
and Ashley Leia of
yay!!! 😃 😊
I’m really glad with how well this went, and so very happy that I could show them my appreciation as a blogger for how insightful readers they are, and that they both are enjoying their MIMRAs. 😀   They have both kindly shared their impressions (thanks so much for that 🙂 ), so I’m sharing them so that all of you can know what was in the packages. 🙂
Here is
Ashley’s post, with her and her guinea pig Casper opening their package
and Carol Anne and Taylor’s video is below. 🙂
just so that everyone knows, the candles are with shea butter, which can be poured into a bath or used for a massage. I used to have one like those years ago and loved it. And it is cool as even when you use up the shea butter it’s still practical and you can use it for something else.
Hi people. 🙂
When do you start Christmas shopping?
My answer:
Not very early, usually. We’re generally quite late with all the Christmas stuff, and hardly do anything before Advent, which usually means we start everything off around mid December haha. When I do Christmas shopping, it’s just presents and I prefer to have that done earlier so I don’t have to stress what I should get for everyone and whether I’ll be able to. So last year I think I was done with my shopping a week into December. This year everything seems to be happening much faster, we are already listening to Christmas music, Mum has made most of the pierogi which makes me and my siblings feel like all that waiting is completely unnecessary and we could have the Christmas Eve supper already. 😀 And there has been My Inner Mishmash Readership Award which is sort of linked with Christmas so I feel more Christmassy than I usually do around this time of year. Apart from the award stuff though, I haven’t done any shopping and I don’t have any present ideas for people, I guess I’m a bit burnt out from thinking about MIMRA and what to do for it for almost 3 months. 😀
How about your Christmas shopping? 🙂
What is the oddest thing you’ve heard of someone eating for Christmas?
My answer:
I’m quite familiar with many things people eat for Christmas in different countries as well as different regions of Poland but many feel a bit odd to me. My most recent odd discovery was that people – my family to be exact! – eat fruit soup for Christmas! Or rather Christmas Eve since it’s on Christmas Eve that we have a big Christmas meal here in Poland. Fruit soup has never been a tradition in our family, the only few times I’ve had it was at other people’s, but it seems like my extended family have embraced it. I’ve never heard of it being a Christmas dish! Dried fruit kompot – yes – but fruit soup was absolutely a novelty to me, I’ve always associated it more with summer since it’s a cooler soup. My Mum actually hates fruit soup, I have nothing against it although I do think it is a bit weird.
What’s such oddest thing in your opinion? 🙂
Hey people. 🙂
Let’s continue with some early Christmas questions, shall we? 🙂
What’s your favourite kind of Christmas decoration (tree, lights, garlands etc.)?
My answer:
I’m not sure I have a favourite. if anything, I often find Christmas decorations a little bit annoying especially if people put them so that they get in your way or something, sometimes getting around where there are many decorations can be a bit tricky. If I’d have to choose anything I’d go with Christmas tree, especially a natural one. I don’t have the best sense of smell at all but when I can feel the smell of Christmas tree I think it’s beautiful. I could also say baubles just because I like the feel of glass.
You? 🙂
What is your favourite Christmas song? Your least favourite?
My answer:
I have many favourites which make me await December every year so that I can listen to them, I don’t listen to them all year, only since the beginning of December to February 2nd when Christmas carols singing time ends over here, so I’m never bored with them. But I think my most favourite is “Christmas Secrets” by Enya, that I have previously shared. It’s really magical. Least favourite? I find most of the mainstream Christmas music that you hear in the shops, in the radio and such kind of infantile, annoying, superficial, boring and just meh. But… wait a minute… there was such a classic that I hate but I don’t remember/know the title, let me look it up… uhhh, yeah, “Merry Christmas Everybody” by Slade. The harmony of this song, something in its melody makes my brain feel uneasy, there just are such songs, sounds, sequences of sounds, melodies, and this song is one of them. It’s the chorus I have problems with the most when I happen to hear it. It’s such a strange feeling and even more strange to describe, it’s like what you’re hearing is one big dissonance in a way (not aesthetic usually or not necessarily, it’s a different kind of a dissonance) plus your mind vs that song/sound don’t get along. It can make me feel that some sounds and/or harmonies are aggressive, kind of evil in a way, and that it’s directed straight at me, directly, it just makes me feel uneasy emotionally and in a way physically and often anxious. I just wonder why the heck people don’t hear such things, I’m not even saying about that they don’t react like I do but they don’t even hear anything wrong, when I show people two songs that trigger sensory anxiety for me they don’t see anything in common in the sound or in their perception of the songs. It makes me feel crazy! It’s far from being among those the most triggering sounds I’ve come across in my life but it’s just unpleasant to hear. And “Gothic Christmas” by Within Temptation is horrible, but just because of what it’s like, not because of the harmonies and all those intricacies, I’m not sure which I hate more, I guess each deserves an award in its own category. 😀
