may your days be merry and bright...

||| all stills taken with my iPhone and edited with VSCO presets ||| 

my journal's spine is breaking with all i have been jotting and stuffing between her pages // 
>> the days have been cold and snowless {typical california}, but warmed with dances and dinners and the making and wrapping of handmade gifts. it's christmas eve eve, and i still have a staring ever-lengthening list that must be contended with. honestly, i think i spend half as much time befuddled as to how christmas came upon us all so very quickly. 

>> we saw saving mr. banks, and i cried. the end. 

>> friday night was spent dancing upon tip toe, being twirled and swung all about. a victorian christmas ball, though only five days prior to the big day, was the best of ways to experience christmas cheer. i came home with sore legs but dear memories of delightful music and deepening of friendships made it all the more worth it. 

>> stiff/sore legs didn't stop me for swing dancing on sunday evening. any dance in general i can't pass up, and the evening was filled to the brim with swing music, good food, fantastic friends, and deepening my love for swing dancing. another new year's resolution has been added to my list // learn how to swing dance WELL. ;) 
>> my darling friends have been showering me with anglophile/doctor who lovelies. miss JW sent me the cutest doctor who bookmark + tardis necklace; my dearest MP sent me a homemade notebook, while my darling amelia pond navigated a little TARDIS to my doorstep. secretly i think they're all trying to make up for my raggedy man regenerating on Christmas. *sniff, sniff* ;( 

two more days, m'dears! 
may your Christmas be merry and bright, lovely, blessed, and snowy white. ;) 

Merry Christmas, lovelies!!!

xx 

love is on the way.

I wake up to reality and now it's calling me, to be the kind of hope you're looking for. But I am here, and you're so far away, so there's no more time to waste. No longer waiting, I'm ready to go... // run, charmaine //

||| a few stills of december daily life ||| 

                                                                                        

i beg of you to love with your whole being & nothing less. 

there is a world outside, love

hardened with cold, cloaked in brokeness, frozen in bitterness, 

shadowed with hopelessness 

and only you hold the power to melt this tundra. 

show kindness. 

there are too many pretty eyes dimmed with tears at night

too many nights haunted with memories of loneliness

and too many hands numbed with indifference

kill this cold with kindness. 

you are broken, but don't let it stop you. 

you're too young to turn a cold shoulder against this world

yes it isn't fair, yes people have silently walked out

and left your heart's pieces on the floor

seasons have left you to starve, 

but

make sure to let life know

it hasn't hardened you

prove that it has strengthened you

& be a relentless message that love is on the way. 

the world is a harsh place, it's chalk full of broken people,

there's not enough room to add to the piles of bad things 

and we must leave it a better place than it was found. 

xx 

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rocking around the christmas tree...with red lipstick.

>> confession. i was a bit reluctant to join delight's "rocking red lips day." red lipstick, though lovely and oh-so-forties-ish, scared me to death. 
>> confession. i researched lipstick way more than i needed to for this event. 

>> confession. i dragged my mom all over the place to find the right lipstick, and searched high and low for the "perfect" redness.  

>> confession. i didn't find it. 

>> confession. red lipstick is hard to find. 

>> confession. i stink at putting lipstick on. {in sephora the other day, i literally had red lipstick all over my face *ultimate face palm*}. 

>> confession. i mixed like four different lipsticks to get this color. 

>> confession. i didn't wear the red lips all day. *shhhh* 

>> confession. i tried really hard to persuade mum to let me wear it to church. here's how it went // 

me: i wouldn't wear it to church but, i finally got a color i like...

mom: yeah, that's much better. 

me: *looking in mirror* well actually, it's not too bad. i think i could maybe wear it to church...

mom: uh, no.

me: okay. 

yup, isn't that the most persuasive speech you ever did hear? i wouldn't have been brave enough to wear it to church anyhow. :D 

>> confession. red lipstick made me don on my fifties dress that my sister bought me + pearls. it MADE me do it, kay?!

>> confession. red lipstick makes me want to go swing dancing. 

>> confession. i think i may have fallen in love with red lipstick. 

>> confession. did you read "confession," before each line?! :D 

xx 

postscript // it's december already?!!! where on earth did this year go?!! - scratch that, where on earth did my life go?!!!