Monthly Archives: December 2023

Ghosts of Christmases Past

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It never seems to fail.  Come the first week in December, I get overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done before Christmas – decorating, shopping, cards, planning, and so much more.  As a teacher, that doesn’t even include everything that needs to be wrapped up before winter break.  December, and Christmas in particular, are such a whirlwind of emotion and activity.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas.  In fact, I adore it.  My December 18th birthday just adds to it all.  The reality that I am another year older doesn’t always help.  I am old enough to miss several people who are no longer with us, particularly my grandparents, all of whom loom large in my Christmas childhood memories.  Somewhere in the first week of December, I hit a wall, and frankly, I don’t want Christmas to come at all.  Yet, it always does, and somehow, everything gets done on time.  New memories are made.  I just wish that it wasn’t such a messy process.

As with anything else in my life, I have to get over my idea of “perfection.”  Who cares if I decorate later?  I am decorating just for myself.  Who cares if I leave up my Christmas a little longer?  I still want to enjoy it once the craziness is over.  It is time to move on and continue not caring what others think.  It will all work out in the end.  I will get plenty of time to spend with family and friends over break, and maybe even a chance to rest.

What is it about the Christmases of our childhood that bring back such vivid memories that we long to recreate?  The thing is, it is in my blood.  My mom adores Christmas.  When mom and dad were newlyweds, she started playing Christmas music in October.  After spending nearly a week in the hospital after I was born (yes, I am that old, and my mom was sick when I was born), my parents brought me “home” on Christmas Eve.  In fact, they didn’t take me home.  They took me directly to Grandma Buttrick’s for the Christmas Eve festivities.  I don’t believe we arrived home until the next day.

I often wonder what that Christmas Eve 1980 at Grandma and Grandpa Buttrick’s was like.  The only evidence I have that I was there are pictures of my parents holding me as I was decked out as Santa in a Christmas sleeper with a Santa beard bib.  I wasn’t even the only one celebrating her first Christmas.  My cousin Abby would turn one year old a few months later.  It is fitting that we shared a first Christmas, just as we shared so many other childhood memories and fears.  Christmas would not be the same without cousins.

As if two babies at Christmas wasn’t enough, 1980 represented the first Christmas in Standish.  Earlier that year, Great, my great grandma, moved from Marshall, Michigan to Standish in order to be closer to her sons, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  I grew up hearing about all of the epic Christmases in Marshall at Great’s house.  My mom and her sisters still marvel at how their mother packed everything for Christmas for five girls and then hauled it all across half the state.  I imagine I get the same look in my eyes when I talk about Christmas Eve at Grandma Buttrick’s – or our entire itinerary – that my mom and her sisters get when they talk about Christmas in Marshall.

I can envision a time when my nieces and nephews will reminisce about the Christmases in Omer at Grandma Lala’s and Papa Chocolate Mik’s house, the house in which I grew up.  I love to see how much they enjoy spending time together, even if it is absolute chaos.  I just hope that I help to create a little bit of Christmas magic for them all.

For the Love of Tech

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A journal full of blogging topics and ideas and here I am at a loss as to what to write.  Nothing feels right – and it hasn’t for months.  That in and of itself is the reason for the silence.  It needs to end.

A few months ago, I joined an active Facebook group focused on Xennials, those of us born between 1977 and 1983.  I am smackdab in the middle, and I definitely belong to that micro generation.  I mention it because there is one recurring theme in this particular group that resonates deeply with me at this point in my life:  When did we become the adults?  I imagine that particular thought crosses everyone’s mind once they hit 40.  Frankly, it sucks.

On a brighter note, I’ve really enjoyed the Xennial Facebook group.  After working with teeneagers day in, day out, it is nice to chat online with a crazy group of people who actually get your cultural references.  It is reassurance that it isn’t just you, the world is incredibly different from the one in which you grew up.  That brings me to tech.

As I’ve been working from home as a long-term online substitute teacher over the last few months, I rediscovered my love of tech.  At one time, I thought that I would have a corporate career in the semiconductor industry.  I interned at IBM and completed a co-op position with Applied Materials as an undergrad.  Applied Materials, a leading manufacturer of capital equipment for the semiconductor industry, still fascinates me.  It wasn’t meant to be; however, tech still runs deep in my soul.

Of course, as Xennials, one thing that completely separates us from Gen X and Millennials – we are both and neither – is technology.  Gen X learned most modern technology as adults, while Millennials are digital natives.  Xennials grew up right along with tech and adapted as we grew.  We had an analog childhood (praise God!) and a digital adulthood.  That is what makes us unique, and frankly, it is at least in part why I feel our experiences need to be preserved.

No one else experienced the growth of tech quite like Xennials.  Our parents, mainly Boomers, turned to us as their personal tech support.  We could program VCRs, set up gaming system and computers, and recommend a good cell phone without batting an eye.  Growing up, my sister and I were the first to navigate the internet in our household, not our parents.  I could feel just as at home on an old Apple II as with a 2023 Acer with the latest 2 TB solid state AMD harddrive.   By some accident of history, I witnessed unprecedented changes in technology that have fundamentally changed the way we live, work, and play.  Eerily, I believe it is just getting started.  AI is next.

The Beatles – Now and Then (2023)

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The Beatles – Now and Then (2023) (Official Video) (Lyrics) (Documentary)

(Written December 4, 2023)

When I started The Mixtapes project on Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde, I knew that I would eventually have to address my love of the Beatles.  Where to begin?  As a result, I let nearly a year go by.  Now, the decision has been made for me.  We will start at the end.

I never dreamed that I would get the opportunity to write about a “new” Beatles release.  Here I am, almost a month after the fact, doing just that.  As a girl born a few days after John Lennon’s untimely death, a fan who witnessed the release of the Anthology Project during her high school years, it feels a fitting conclusion to all that the Beatles have achieved over the decades.  Over the last month, I’ve watched as the reactions to “Now and Then” itself, the music video, and the mini-documentary came rolling in.  Unsurprisingly, there is no consensus.

My only criticism of the “Now and Then” project: the lackluster design for the single.
However, considering the rerelease of the “Red” and “Blue” compilation albums,
it somewhat makes sense.

Beatles fans appear to be solidly in two camps.  The first group is dismissive, stating that “Now and Then” will never rank among their greatest hits.  Of course it won’t!  How could it?  That is not the point.  Advances in technology aside, they state that it never should have been made.  I’ve also heard “fans” (I purposely use that term loosely) complain that video clips of John and George used in the official video are too “irreverent.”  I still have a hard time understanding that criticism from self-professed fans.

My response is simply this:  Did you understand the Beatles – the band and the then young men who created it – at all?  Their humor is a huge part of what made them so great.  Their humor still holds up today.  They simply would not have been the Beatles if you took humor out of the equation.  I love that I can laugh at images of two men who are long gone and dearly missed in a newly released music video.

Then there is my favorite:  “Now and Then” sounds too much like John Lennon’s solo work from the late 1970s.  Of course it does.  That is exactly what “Now and Then” represents, if only a demo.  John did record it in the 70s, and as the Beatles disbanded in 1970, he likely meant for it to be a solo effort.  However, that is only part of the story.  

“Now and Then” is also one of a handful of unfinished demos that Yoko Ono gave to Paul McCartney upon John’s death.  During the Anthology Project, Paul, George, and Ringo completed two of the other demos, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.”  At the time, both songs climbed the charts and introduced the Beatles to an entirely new generation of fans.  By the way, both songs, along with their music videos, still hold up – even if some fans are now calling for them to be “cleaned up” as well.

Even though I didn’t think about it at the time, it makes sense that there was supposed to be a third song released with the Anthology Project.  It was released in three parts after all.  That third song?  “Now and Then.”  It just took a few decades, Peter Jackson, and new technology lovingly called “MAL” for it to come to fruition.

Personally, I don’t think that the Beatles could have ended on a better note.  It is nostalgic, almost timeless, and with its humor, the video is even better.  It is a true love letter from Paul and Ringo to George and John – not to mention all of us, the fans.  So, to Sirs Paul and Ringo, thank you!  Once again, the Beatles will be rediscovered by an entirely new generation of music junkies.

On a sidenote, even the 5th Beatle, George Martin, was there in a sense.  In his absence, his son Giles Martin, who just happened to play a huge role in the orchestration of “Love,” helped put those finishing touches on “Now and Then.”