Okay, if the holidays keep going like this I'm going to need lots and lots of tissues.
Reason the first?
We're all mildly sick. I already keep a box of tissues in every room in the house and lately it doesn't seem like enough. We are a family of dripping noses. It will probably be like this all winter.
Reason the second?
This year the holiday season is feeling totally bittersweet to me. Some years this just happens. I LOVE Christmas and everything that comes with it so I am happy that we are firmly in the holiday season. We're enjoying holiday books and music and gift-buying and surprise-plotting. My guess is that by the end of December you'll all be sick of hearing how the holidays this year are making me agonize over the fleeting nature of childhood. Harper asked me to read The Polar Express tonight and I happily obliged, until the last page. I wasn't just getting choked up, I was practically sobbing. Of course she's a total believer and could not imagine what I found sad about those last few sentences. Needless to say I didn't want to enter into a conversation about people who don't believe in Santa Claus.
That's just it. Some years I can't read The Polar Express without crying*. It looks like this is going to be one of those years.
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*Other things I can rarely read aloud without crying include the last sentence of Charlotte's Web (and also the part where she dies), and Love You Forever (which I know is kind of creepy, but it still makes me bawl). Surely there are others but those are the two that immediately come to mind.
6 comments:
tons of music makes me cry. Then the other day, I was reading a pound puppy book (from when I was a kid) and read that they named the puppy 'happy'. Sob. I was pretty sure I was pg, but ended up 4 days late :( I mean, who cries over what you name a dog for goodness' sake? Apparently me (pg or not!) Anyway... you're not alone. I cry at a lot of crud anymore.
The Polar Express is a huge favorite at our house. When the kids were younger we read it together every Christmas eve before hanging personalized bell ornaments on the tree.
The first time I saw/read Love You Forever, I worked in a bookstore and was standing right there in the children's section with tears streaming. My friend's daughter quoted it in her salutatorian speech at graduation and half the audience desperately needed tissues.
Bridge to Terabithia...umm could i cry any harder reading a children's book? I'm pretty sure i cried in 6th grade when Mrs. F read that to us in class too.
-Colleen
You must never read "The Most Thankful Thing"
I totally get it. I get all verklempt at Love You Forever. And when I was teaching I got all choked up and weepy reading Love That Dog. My students thought I was nuts.
I'm with you about being sentimental at Christmas and have already cried when a colleague at work asked me if I was going to get an ornament for my cat that died this year.
"Love you forever" used to make me cry but not recently. Have never read Polar Express but will now! X
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