Merry Christmas.

[la szum]

I took my Mom (who lost her husband and last living sibling this year) to a "Longest Night Service"
at her Church. It was a service to honour those who don't get all happy for the Holidays and have
more reasons to mourn than to celebrate.

It was on the Winter Solstice. My Mom is the one who brought the idea to their Church---as she
worked in Hospice and was a Grief Counselor later in her working life.

I feel like honouring our ACTUAL experience is more in keeping with the Spirit of the Season (and
truer to ourselves) than the lapdance artificial happy of our consumer-driven culture.

May we all find some solace in the music that seems to be the central theme of existence drawing
us all here. It can be sad, happy, angry, bitter, angsty, uncertain, or a mixture of all of the above.
Music is like the one thing that includes everything and excludes nothing. Universal Embrace.

 

[HomespunEffects]

One of my best friends and fantastic musician died day before yesterday out of the blue. Five years younger than me. One of the nicest most generous people you could ever have the pleasure of meeting.
It just shows you life is short and you never know when it will end. Tell your loved ones how you feel and live every day.

Sorry to hear that, my friend. May his memory be a blessing.

 

[newpedals]

As someone with a not-so-awesome family situation I’d respect his wishes this year and maybe work on something for next year. This is the weirdest time of the year for me and I can’t wait for it to pass. When people ask “What are you doing for Christmas?” I have the choice to lie and tell them I’ll be doing the family thing, or tell the truth and deal with the pity party I’m not looking for.

If I don’t pick up the phone and call people, I won’t hear a peep from a single person in my family. Haven’t seen them for a Christmas in nearly 20 years. At most I get to enjoy the cat/mouse game my sister plays where she tells me her and my mom will be somewhere so I can call them, but then they don’t answer and the next day I’m the bad guy because I couldn’t get them on the phone. While I’m nowhere near bah-humbug, any attention on that aspect of the holidays makes me uncomfortable as all hell. It’s just dumb, messy family shit that people want to offer advice on without knowing the details of any of it and it’s FAR, FAR, FAR better to just let the holiday pass without getting into any of it. I can have a great day playing guitar/video games without any awkward family discussions and certainly not the pity party.

We can understand your situation. Either we have experienced similar things or one of our friends/ someone in the family has been through something like this. It's all right. It's easy for anyone to be a couch potato and comment or offer advice. Ignore such people. Happy Holidays!

Hugs from all of us, your friends on this forum.

Brianna

 

[newpedals]

*Mariah has entered the chat*

I like some of her songs but have not seen much of her live performances because I watch very little TV/ youtube usually.

Is this real or AI generated?

Gosh she always seems to have kind of an entourage around her.

 

[PLX]

Is this real or AI generated?

She is 100% real !