Holiday is Where the Heart is by kristin

Today is December 1, which gives us special permission to start listening to Christmas music, and fantasize about the perfect holiday. How does it happen? Is it Frank Sinatra crooning “I’ll be home for Christmas” or the local Starbucks hipster CD compilation that brings a smile to your face? Maybe it is watching your favorite Christmas movie. I like the ones that bring to mind happier times in the country, when neighbors were looking out for each other, and families kept the home fires burning. Of course, even in the old days, there were always curmudgeons like Scrooge or the incorrigible Mr. Potter in Frank Capra’s “Its a Wonderful Life.”

One of my favorite obscure holiday movies is “Holiday Affair” with Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh. It takes place in New York—an excellent city for the holiday season, often with snow and of course the skaters at Rockefeller Center, shoppers on Fifth Avenue, carriage rides in Central Park and all of the excitement of thousands of people on the street rushing about, including men in topcoats (now if they only still wore fedoras!).

An even more unusual holiday selection, Bell, Book, and Candle, about some rather charming witches, opens in New York city at Christmastime, and stars Kim Novak and James Stewart, along with a stellar cast of character actors. My niece Madeline has a system for the family in which movies are “allowed” only at certain time periods throughout  the month of December. I think she starts out with the TV show A Charlie Brown Christmas, and lets the excitement build from there.

Of course, I can remember many a holiday season in New Orleans, driving around in my car in the warm sunshine, listening to WWOZ and their R & B Christmas music as the palm trees swayed. Holiday spirit comes in many guises, I guess. Sometimes remembrances of things past are what brings that warm feeling to your heart. My brother loves to read A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote aloud to the family, and I like to read A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas to anyone who will listen.

So what does all of this have to do with Living Light and raw food? It’s time to think about those holiday gifts for friends and family. We’ll be putting out a Holiday Gift Guide in the next few days with some great ideas for how to warm the hearts of everyone you love and keep their spirits uplifted all year long—stay tuned! PS..If you are local or visiting the Mendocino coast on December 10, be sure to stop by Living Light Inn….the halls will be decked for the 22nd Annual Mendocino Coast Candlelight Inn Tour. Holly Jolly!