Saturday, December 3, 2011

25 Days of Christmas: Day 3

One of my favorite things about Longwood is all of the Longwood traditions.
Anything from Oktoberfest and Color Wars, Spring Weekend and Oozeball, Thanksgiving Dinner, the tree lighting, Walk, etc...the list goes on! But I think two of the coolest Longwood traditions are Chi and Princeps. I've written about them a couple of times, but if you don't remember or you missed those posts, Chi and Princeps are the two secret societies at Longwood. Chi represents the spirit of Longwood and Princeps recognizes for scholarship and academics. No one knows anyone who's in these societies, nor do they know how to get in. Throughout the year, members of both of these societies leave "droppings" around campus. It's kind of rare to find them and they're supposed to bring you good luck! They can be anything from small squares of fabric, to rubber ducks, to (my favorite) ornaments!!! Over the years, I've had three Chi/Princeps ornaments in my possession. The gold ornament with the red 7 (Princeps) is the one I found. During the last week of classes during the fall semester of my sophomore year, I found it hanging in a tree as I was walking to breakfast! I was SO excited. The black snowflake ornament is also a Princeps dropping, but it was passed down to me last year by my elf-sized Christmas friend, Sara :) The blue ornament is my Chi ornament. This was also passed down to me last year by Shannon!



Here's where they've all been hanging this year (this is over my bed):

As of yesterday afternoon, I only have two. No, I didn't do something bad or lose it or anything!! Instead, I gave it to someone as a Christmas passdown. They needed some more Christmas in their room so I thought, why not pass one down now instead of waiting until April/May? Well, the lucky recipient of that ornament was, of course, my sister :)

Friday, December 2, 2011

25 Days of Christmas: Day 2

Every year for Christmas, my dad gives my sister and I some small, yet important. For a while, everything we got each year had our birthstone on it. Then for a couple years we got ballet ornaments. Of the several ballet dancer ornaments he's given, this one is my favorite. It's probably my favorite because it involves two of my favorite things: dance and GLITTER!! (If you didn't know, I danced for 14 years before I came to Longwood.) I wish you were able to see how sparkly this ornament really is, but of course, because of the flash, it just doesn't show up as flashy!
And the years where we've gotten these ornaments, in all the excitement of opening gifts, Abby and I tend to not think about whether or not a gift might be fragile....so we've been told several times that we can't open this present too fast, haha. And maybe you can see why--these dancers' legs are so tiny and would snap off in a heartbeat!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

25 Days of Christmas: Day 1

I know, I know, I know. I've been a HORRIBLE blogger this semester. My next to last semester of school has by far been the busiest, most stressful semester I can remember! Not to mention that this has been the busiest week alone. I could go on and on about all of these things I've done this semester, papers I've written, meetings I've gone to, but, that's just gonna have to wait for another post. Why? Because today is December 1, which only means one thing: my 25 Days of Christmas countdown!!! This is my 3rd year doing my 25 Days of Christmas. In 2009, the theme was my 25 favorite things about Christmas. In 2010, I did my top 25 favorite Christmas songs. This year, I'm doing my top 25 favorite Christmas ornaments!!!
I've been fortunate enough to have gone on 3 family vacations to Disneyworld. The last 2 times we went around Thanksgiving and experienced Christmastime at Disneyworld! It was seriously amazing. I mean, who doesn't love Christmas AND Disney?!

I got this ornament the last time we went, and I just love it. The scene is in front of Cinderella's castle, and mostly all of the Disney characters are decorating the tree! :)
If I ever get the change to go back to Disneyworld, I will definitely be going around Christmastime again!!