Ring out the old, ring in the new!

.... Ring happy bells, across the snow...
That's Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and we used to sing a version of it in choir.
Happy New Year, everyone!
I've just now gotten back from a ski-break with my family, and spent a lovely night hanging out with my friends.  I'll post later (maybe tomorrow) about this past year, but today I'm just looking forward to the new year.  I've got college ahead of me, and new books and friends and music and experiences!
See you in 2012

Away for a bit

Hello, blog readers!
I'm going to be away on holiday with my family for a couple days - see you back come New Year's!
I'm looking forward to reading the books I got for Christmas, catching up on some schoolwork, and playing the piano - as well as (hopefully!) beating my brother at Cribbage once or twice.
See you in 2012!
Love,
Bronwyn

Happy Christmas

It doesn't feel like Christmastime to me yet.  It isn't snowing, and we just have too much to do before Sunday for it to be the day before Christmas Eve.  But it is, and I'm happy.
I'm so happy to be back home with my family.  I love Reed, I love being with my friends and having my own life way out in the Pacific Northwest, but I love it here more.  More than my books and my dorm room and the sheepskin in the armchair, more than I love sitting and listening to Bartók with my friends, more than long conversations in Commons about Thucydides and Proposition 8 and Switzerland.   I love sitting here at our old kitchen table and playing the piano in our living room and falling asleep listening to the rain on my skylight.  Most of all, though, I love spending time with my beloved family.  
So I guess it is Christmastime.  I am here with my family, whom I love, and that's really what matters.
Happy Christmas, everyone!

Gift Guide, Part VIII: Your amazing mother

What my mother wants for Christmas is a newel post lamp for the hallway, but I can't get one of those for her (I am a college student, after all).  But she likes other things - books and the like, so these are ideas for my incredible mother... Mummy, don't look!

Swamplandia, a book you've heard great things about, $10.17....

An Ethiopian Cross, because you remember her talking about having one that got stolen when she was a little girl, $12....

Or a cool chalkboard globe, $49.00

Gift Guide, Part VII: Your awesome father

These are ideas for my father, who brings me tea every morning and plays the piano and knows most of what there is to know about music and history and all sorts of cool things.  Daddy, please don't look!

A huge history book about America's Great Migration for him to read while you're on holiday in Maine because he finds these things interesting, $11.53....

A scarf, 'cause scarves are cool, $42.50...

And the "music I'm currently listening to," but the Jazz Album 'cause my father's an accomplished jazz pianist, $12.73

Gift Guide, Part VI: Your gorgeous little sister

These are for Ursula, our firecracker full of conviction and life and beautiful things.  Ursie, I am not kidding, don't look!

A Moroccan-style candle holder to remind her of the trip you took last spring, $12.95...

An orange scarf because she's one of those rare people who looks absolutely incredible in orange and she already talks and acts like a French girl, $19.99...

Or pretty stationery, so that she'll write to you while you're away at school, $11.99

Gift Guide, Part V: Your incredible brother

These are for Caleb, who plays the piano and wears super-French scarves and has girls clinging to him left and right (it's true).  Caleb, I'm not kidding, DO NOT LOOK

A plaid shirt that you could "borrow" (and it would make him look cool), $73.50...

Cashmere-lined leather gloves, because he would have them forever and his hands get cold, $68...

Or a flask, that right now he could use for, like, tea or something but one day could carry whiskey, $25.