For a while now I have been taking pictures of Krakow facing Winter with a smile upon her face. How does one do that when outside is so cold, so chilly and windy that your bone marrow freezes? Well... here is how I put a smile on my face: I think of my beloved ones and I think of Christmas. I like to think of happy things, things that make me warm inside-out... like when I was small and everything was a game. When little things mattered more than money and time and deadlines.
I love having long walks and at Christmas time, when everything is well prepared and decorated, its a pleasure to have the camera with you to see what else came up. Due to my awesome husband now I no longer have to carry the camera with me. With my new Samsung Galaxy S4 I can do photos good enough to quickly upload on my new Instagram profile or on my Facebook Page :) On Facebook I already have an album dedicated especially to the Christmas/Winter season of 2014. I try to upload things on a daily basis, when I find a new #windowdisplay that catches my eye :)
Everybody was rushing in head on into the holidays! Ever since beginning of November... Actually, to tell you the truth, once Halloween is over and then Thanksgiving Day, everybody starts thinking of Christmas. I can already see the counters of how many days till Christmas remain... It is a bit of madness there, but hey! Who am I to judge? I wish Christmas could stay all year round! With more than a month to go until Christmas, the shops/stores were competing whom will have the most fancy look so I thought I might give it a go and record them :)
Its odd, you know, that only at Christmas we open up more. We are more warm and caring to one another. Like we would like to take out all the generosity in the world and fill it in only 31 days... Only in December people could care, people would buy gifts for others and care for anyone else then their person. Its sad how we forget the principles of forgive and forget in our day-to-day but we miraculously pop them out of our pocket when December comes...
Christmas was always a special time in my heart and December was always close to my heart. Of course having the Civil Wedding in December helps it get to the top of my favourite months :) As Dr. Seuss said, Christmas does not come from a store. Christmas means more than lovely decorations, kick-arse window displays, rushing into malls and buying dozen of gifts (most of the times at the last moment, as we are all so very busy nowadays...). Christmas for me = love.
Christmas for me is a time to love and be loved. Of course, you may object and say that actually we should love eachother and ourself at each moment of our lifes. I can totally agree with that but what I would like to underline is that less and less people think nowadays about love in its more true and pure form: God. Christmas should be a celebration where we speak of the love that God had for us, to come to Earth, be as us, and teach us about the true love.
Bob Hope once said "My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?" - I can agree with him. God created us so we could love and be loved in return. We live in a world where people forgot what Christmas really is and what we really are celebrating. It is sad how far away we always seem to move from the truth...
“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder
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| Christmas Fair At The Main Market Square |
I was also thinking this month, as we were packing things to move into our new home - oh, yes, this is a surprise for you guys, but we are not ready yet to tell you more :) - I was thinking about how many things that we actually do not need, we store during our life... on the possibility that one day we may need it or it may come in handy. I remember my mum telling me about a friend of hers who would buy per season 2-3 pieces of clothing that she would give away at the end to get new ones... she never had a full closet but she always looked gorgeous. On the other hand, I watch Downton Abbey and you see all those wardrobes with so many clothes and accessories... the temptation is so big, so how do you actually fight that?!
“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.” ― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
So many different thoughts and feelings come to me, as Christmas closes in. Not to mention the end of the year and closing the book, checking statistics and figuring out if the year was good... All these mixed up emotions between the material and the imaterial in life... I hope you will celebrate Christmas nonetheless and I hope you believe in God. We tend to forget that Christmas comes for Christ. Maybe we should put a sticky note on our forhead with that :) In the meanwhile, I for sure, will keep you posted on my new Instagram profile and on my Facebook Page on how Krakow looks. How it transformed for Christmas, how it transformed for Winter and the Holidays :)
Yours truly,
A Passionate LadyBug
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