Commercial Christmas?

Here we are again, that wonderful time of year. Christmas. Many people think that Christmas has become too commercial, that everyone is too caught up in gifts and shopping and decorations. But what defines Christmas as commercial? Everyone I know is all for giving at Christmas time. I don't know anybody (little kids aside) that is obsessed with what they will get and how much of it. There's the families that won't have a Christmas. So when others give freely of themselves and help them have a good Christmas, does that mean that poor family is greedy for wanting a Christmas with presents? Of course not! So those of us who are financially sound are guilty of being greedy because we get excited for Christmas?
Everyone also says that decorations are too elaborate and fake. Almost every sort of decoration we have is symbolic of that first Christmas long ago when our Savior was born. The Christmas tree, string lights, wreaths, etc. The Christmas spirit is in our hearts, true, but not everyone has an open heart. They need actions and sights to help soften their hatred for the world so that they too might feel the joy that comes with Christmas. Those that are obsessed with feeling the "true" Christmas spirit and trying to make it "not commercial" are the ones who are bitter all season and never do feel the Christmas spirit. Take it to someone who's mom puts on Christmas music all year round, all these "commercial" parts of Christmas are just ways people get into the real spirit.
Don't get me wrong. There are many people out there who ARE greedy and are unwilling to give to others because they always feel like THEY need more. They aren't truly happy. They think Christmas is about getting gifts and if Christmas is supposed to be happy then they must need more gifts to be happy. I love giving to others. I love service. I know I don't do it as often as I should, but when I do I feel happier than anything in the world. Am I a good person? I like to think so. Am I excited for presents? Of course I am! I'm human! Just because I like getting things, doesn't mean I'm not allowed to enjoy giving things. There just needs to be a balance.
Anyway, that's my rant. Granted a lot of people I know will probably be mad at me for this and start an argument. *sigh* Oh well, this is my opinion and it comes from my heart. I love Christmas!

Yes, well, apparently everyone's mad at me because I never post anything. Not my fault. I have nothing to talk about and nothing happens in my life. And nobody wants to hear me complain which is all I do. So um...yeah, Twilight was amazing but if I write about that I'll probably get a bunch of comments saying "no it wasn't" and all that jazz. Um, Sadie's was fun, read about it on Shalece's blog. I decided yesterday I want to quit my job but I can't. Leadership training was super fun yesterday and I learned a lot and I think I'll get better at my calling now. I wanna play lacrosse. I'm excited for my party with the smash cats on tuesday, although it means I don't get to see the play again. I have to work every day of break which really pretty much sucks. I'm about to get yelled at for still being on the computer. I didn't do my English homework...again. I don't want to get up for early morning tomorrow. I wish I had time to read my new book. I wish I could write so I could finish my book. I wish I knew why boys are like, not attracted to me. I'm pissed that Utah won but I won't write about that either because then most my friends will laugh in my face...they will anyway. I said I wasn't going to complain but that's pretty much all I'm doing, get over it. Crap, I forgot to do my laundry, guess I'm wearing sweats tomorrow. My lips hurt, I need chapstick. My mom's in a really bad mood because she refuses to take her pain medication 'cause it makes her throw up. I think this is long enough now. Goodbye.

Choir Concert

On October 8th we had our first choir concert of the year. It was, how shall I put this, a huge sucess! The dinner part got super chaotic and was kind of an emotional nightmare. By 3:00 that day, only 62 people had bought tickets to dinner. We ended up having nearly 200 people come and weren't exactly prepared for that. Anyway, it all worked out. After calming everybody down and re-learning to breathe, Mrs. C. got us all together to warm up.

Anyone who was stupid enough to goof around (sophmores) received her infamous death-glare. After the voice-methods class sang, everybody got on and did "Betelehemua" (or however you spell that.) It's in an African dialect and it was freaking awesome! We had some of the faculty on drums and the lead soloist of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir did a solo. So it was pretty awesome. Then we all "calmly" got to our next designated spots which happened without any traumatic problems and my acapella choir sang "Wanting Memories," which was one of my favorites. After some other songs that I was too busy worrying to pay attention to, Encore (me!), sang an acapella version of "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT. It was probably the best we've ever sang it and it's such an amazing song.
I don't really know the order of the rest of the songs, but we sang "Domine" There were several other special soloists that Mrs. C. got to come perform and it was awesome. They all had their own solo and sang with us during "Domine." I was really impressed with the sophmore choir and bravo choir. Mostly because last year bravo didn't, erm, well, they didn't sound good. A couple of the songs the sophmore's did went too high for them and it hurt the ears a little. :) But other than that they were good.

We had a much too short intermission before the show continued. It started off with the most hilarious duet ever sung by Brad and Tamera. It was a huge hit and the audience was just laughint histerically.

During the second half, Encore performed a medley of ABBA songs complete with solos, dances, and looking like idiots.

It was so much fun! I really got the thrill of performing because in the other choirs we just stand there. The applause was so loud and it just felt awesome!!!

After the show, mostly Encore and a few other choir members headed up to Maggie Moos for ice cream. Those poor staff members, they were so ready to close when about 20 of us showed up. Oh well! It was fun to bond together because I don't know a lot of the members very well and most of them have been in it for a couple years or at least know each other from musical theater and stuff. I never really feel left out, because all of them are way nice, I just feel like I don't fit in. But it was way fun!

All in all, the concert was super amazing and was one of the best we've ever done I think. Thanks to all of those who came! To all those who couldn't or didn't...NEXT TIME! lol Just kidding!

Junior Lacrosse

I just got back from the Smash Cats game. We played Judge-Evergreen and kicked trash! Yeayah! lol It was pretty awesome. It was snowing like crazy but they all did great. Missy was like, tearing up and down the field and her crease rolls are fifty times better than mine. :) I was super stoked that T-Dawg and Miami both scored. Mo and Haley had some awesome teamwork going on and just kept scoring! And of course, props to our main line of defense Nike, Sid, Kira, Mikay, and our awesome goalie Eli!They did so amazing it was like a brick wall! The final score was 12-7 so it was pretty rad. I can't beleive we only have 2 games left and I have to miss the last one. Stupid ACT. Who cares about my future. jk I don't have any recent pics on my computer yet so these are just some from practice!

Random Rantings

Well, as much as I love lacrosse I was getting a little bored of only seeing 'it' when I got on my blog. So here is my random post I felt like doing right now...Except I have nothing to talk about. This will be interesting. I'm sure you'd love to hear about all my tragic life stories right now, but that's not really the sort of rant I was aiming for. Plus, I want to actually make it sound like I'm a good writer and keep you intersted in this. Which will be hard. Hmm. Where to begin. Oh here's a fun story. So I have Seminary fourth period. Wonderful time of the day. I'm so hyped up and ready to be out of school I don't know how Bro. Tolman can handle me. In honor of this past General Conference we had the yearly "General Conference Jeopardy." Let me just say this, competiveness and Seminary should not mix with Candice. I'm surprised I still have my voice. Okay, it wasn't just me. Everybody was yelling and going crazy. The best part was when Smallz team got the points for something we totally answered first. "You're so full of it Smallz!" I shouted. "You wanna go!?" She yelled back. It kind of took off from there. She climbed over the desk and we tackled each other to the ground. There was mostly a lot of laughing and chokeholds going on. I think I may have accidentaly kicked Mike or Chelsey a couple of times. My bad. Well, there wasn't a whole lot of room in between the desks, so the fight didn't last long. We got up and sat back down and my Seminary teacher was pretty much laughing hysterically. "I can honestly say that that has never happened in any of my classes before." He gasped. I think he needs more excitement in his life. So that's basically my story for the day. I love Seminary!

Junior Lacrosse

This year I'm an assistant coach for Lehi's new Jr. League, the Smash Cats. They're girls grade 3-6 and I love them! They're so cute and are getting good so fast! They've only won one of their games but they've been playing against girls who are mostly all in 6th grade and have been playing for a few years. We only have one girl who's ever played before. Smallz and I came up with nicknames for all the girls. We've got T-Dawg, DJ, Miami, California, Car, Missy, Speedy, Sam, Pastry, Sid, Eli, Nike, Mikay, Choncho, and Mo. And I'll feel really bad if I forgot somebody! :)

Lehi Lacrosse

So, basically my page is really boring right now so I'm gonna talk about Lacrosse, 'cause it's the best. Our first game was last week and we...lost. But it's okay, because we played pretty okay and against Jordan (who's taken state 5 years in a row). I scored the most goals out of my team but wasn't MVP. K-Baby was the second best goalie of all the teams with a save average of almost 71%! Our new players did basically amazing, once they figured out what was going on. :) Today is our second game and I'm pretty stoked for it. I think we'll deffinitely play a lot better than last game!