We have visitors coming this President’s Day weekend, so while I will do my best to maintain the daily posts, it’s possible they will be on the shorter side over the next few days. Hope everyone enjoys the long weekend.
Maybe this should just be another simple pleasures post but I didn’t anticipate that being a recurring feature — and the thing I noticed tonight felt a little different than a simple pleasure, though it sparked similar feelings.
I am a 40-something adult with kids, and as such I don’t enter the Christmas season with high expectations for gifts I will receive. Over the course of the year, if there are things I really want or need I likely get them for myself. Likewise my wife is kind enough to get things for me during the year, so there are rarely big presents coming. The holiday is mostly about the kids and seeing family, as it should be. And eating too much, which it shouldn’t be, but is. I greatly appreciate the things people get me and the efforts that go into them, but I am not counting on being wowed these days.
I was wowed in a very strange way this year.
My mother bought me a big bag of products from a website called coloredflames.net. Allow me to quote directly from the site: “QUICK AND EASY WAY TO TURN ANY CAMPFIRE, BONFIRE OR INDOOR FIRE INTO A FIRE SHOW OF MAGICAL & MYSTICAL COLORFUL FLAMES.”(capital letters are there’s not mine). Friends, I am here to tell you, that is not hyperbole. It does exactly what it says it does. This might be the most I have enjoyed a Christmas present in years.
It’s quite simple. You start a fire. Then you toss one of these suckers into the fire. And the flames turn cool colors. As suggested from the title to this post, maybe it’s the unexpected nature of this that delights me so much. But really, I have no idea why I find it so thrilling. It just looks awesome. Watching a fire is soothing as is, particularly when it’s also warming up a chilly room.
Adding different colored flames really should not be that much of a game changer. Yet I’m captivated. I’m transfixed. I know it’s coming — I’m the one who tosses the thing in, it’s no longer surprising — but it still gets me every time. I sit and stare, and instantly feel a little calmer and more relaxed. Asking more than that from a Christmas present seems pretty absurd at this point. What a lovely, surprising little gift of joy.
It’s a little hard to see, but please look below and allow me to share the wonder with you all. Bask in the glow.
I’m basking.