My husband challenged me to come with the best twelve original Christmas songs released in the past fifty years.* This just MY list — he would change a few of these, for instance. And it doesn’t include any traditional carols or standards. That list would be FAR too long to post! But here ya go: my favorite new Christmas songs.
What songs would make your list?
My husband challenged me to come with the five best original Christmas songs released in the past fifty years.
I failed miserably. I couldn’t get down to five. So he changed it to twelve. I could pick twelve favorites.
I still failed. Even when I cheated (by combining multiple songs by one artist into one entry, for instance), I couldn’t limit myself to twelve.
Music is integral to my heart. It is my soul’s native language. And Christmas is a season filled with emotion that can often only be expressed in song.
So I’ll share my list of top twelve songs in a separate post. I did manage to cull it to twelve.
But I have more than twelve songs I just have to share with you. So here are the songs that didn’t quite make the list — but are still songs that stop me in my tracks every time. I hope you enjoy them.
I find myself easily enraged these days. It started two years ago when not quite half the voters decided they wanted a pussy-grabbing president.
It’s been steadily climbing since as I watched those white boys in Charlottesville and those white men … well, pretty much everywhere.
Then my sexual assault button got triggered when Trump nominated a rapist for the Supreme Court, and the old white men in the Republican Party responded (as they ALWAYS do) by discrediting and blaming the college professor who was assaulted (instead of the frothing-at-the-mouth, anger-management candidate who thought … gasp! …. he might lose his Supreme Court seat when all he tried to do was rape a girl!).
And then the Republicans (as they planned all along) went ahead and seated the rapist as the swing vote because they have an agenda, and … little hint here … it certainly isn’t to protect women’s rights. So why do they care if a rapist is calling the shots?
Yeah. I’m pissed.
My first year of teaching high school was brutally difficult. I was teaching English, earth science, and yearbook, and working long, long hours. Plus, I was the single parent of a 4-year-old boy.
One late afternoon, I was working after-hours with the yearbook staff. We were trying to meet a killer deadline, and it was our third or fourth day in a row working late into the night. I wasn’t getting enough sleep, and I was stressed out and exhausted.
There came a break in the action, and I sat down, just to rest my feet. It was the first time I had stopped in more than ten hours.
I couldn’t get up.
I froze in place, and no matter how much self-talking I did, my body simply refused to respond to the orders given by my brain.
I was planning to write another story of a time I was not-raped (because the guy I was with wasn’t a rapist), but instead I think we need a new set of rules for women in this Brave New World where a man credibly accused of rape is the swing vote on the Supreme Court.
Now that wannabe rapists have been given the A-OK, the old rules for avoiding rape are no longer enough. So here’s how women in the Brett Kavanaugh Era can hope to stay safe.
Today as I was driving my daughter to the college, “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger came on, and I found myself suddenly reliving another experience I had as a young adult.
But unlike the last six, this was was neither sexual assault nor harassment—though it could have been.
New memories keep burbling up. I have always thought of these as completely separate incidents (as, indeed, they were). But this week … as they burble up to the surface one by one and scream, “Hey! Don’t forget about me!” … I realize it’s a lifelong pattern.
A lifelong pattern of men assuming they have unalienable rights to my body.
My father ran a camp when I was pre-teen to young adult. It was called Wilderness Institute, and it was designed to take city kids into the wilderness to experience camping, fishing, hiking, etc. Dad would tour the western U.S., Canada, and Alaska with these groups, visiting national parks and giving them an experience to cherish for the rest of their lives.
Of course, the camp was only for boys. Dad had four daughters at home.
When I was twelve, the whole family joined the camp for part of the trip. Mom drove the pickup with camper, and we caravanned with a couple of passenger vans. I’m not sure why we were included that year, though I do know Mom did most of the cooking.
The trip was momentous for a lot of reasons, but I’m only going to talk about one right now: the boy in the back of the van.
In the past two days, I’ve told you four incidents of sexual assault and/or harassment that happened to me. None of them were garden variety catcalling or amorous boys trying to change my mind. They were clearly assault (3) or harassment (1).
Today I’m going to tell you of another assault.
Yesterday I told you about two incidents in my life that were very clearly sexual assault.
Today I’m going to tell you about two more incidents: one sexual assault and one harassment.
Tomorrow I will tell you about a fifth incident, also a sexual assault.
And that’s not even counting the umpteen men who ignored my boundaries again and again and again because “Your words say ‘no’ but your body says ‘yes'”.
I am watching the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, of course, has been nominated for the Supreme Court, and Ford has accused him of sexual assault.
It is extremely painful and triggering to watch. I have to walk away periodically to remind myself that I am safe, and to remember how to breathe.
It was bad enough when she was describing the event.
But when he started with the facial contortions and the clear anger, it pushed my “DANGER! RUN! HIDE!” buttons.
I have twice been in the position Dr. Ford describes: pinned under a man who was bigger and stronger than I was, who was groping my private parts and trying to remove my clothes, despite my repeated pleas to stop.
