My office smells like the cinema this morning. I began stringing popcorn for the Christmas tree we have yet to purchase. I usually don’t start decorating until the day after Thanksgiving, but technically, I thought, this wasn’t really decorating, it was just pre-decorating. Truth be told, I also started hot gluing the strings on the pine cones from our yard. Still, only the “pre” stage.

I love Christmas! I mean, I really love it! And I want to be patient. And stringing popcorn, what an exercise in patience! I have a memory of popcorn being one big chunk of white fluff at the top that you could easily slide the needle through — but not our popcorn. Our popcorn pops with a flurry, in some sort of neurotic burst that makes the accessible part – almost inaccessible. But I love the look. The smell. The challenge of it all. So I strung, bit by bit, through the tears of watching Love Actually for the 15th time.

I will never apologize for feeling. I want to feel everything! And when there is joy – I will do my best to elongate it! Stretch it out, string it along, kernel by neurotic kernel. You don’t need my permission, but I will offer it anyway, wrap it in colorful, scent-filled words, telling you to do it – find what you love and do it! This day and every day – ’tis the season.