Hello everybody, today my blog will be about two things; what the holidays mean to me and also the state budget.

Did everybody have a nice Thanksgiving? I sure did! Considering that we just got through Thanksgiving and Christmas is only a couple of weeks away, if you can believe that, today my blog will be about what the holidays in general mean to me.

When people think about the holidays there are normally two things that they think about. They either think, “Oh my gosh, I love the holidays” or “Bah, humbug! I don’t like the holidays!” But for me, holidays mean more than glowing colored lights or snowy winter nights, they mean happiness and joy and family. Over the Thanksgiving break, I got to spend some time with family and friends. It was great! For most people, two words come to mind when they think of Thanksgiving, Black Friday! But to me, the holidays are about family. Holidays mean quality time, making good memories and not all about how I got 50% off on a sweater. I think because of Black Friday, the meaning of Thanksgiving is kind of gone; most people want to rush to the mall to get the best deals. It actually breaks my heart to see people shopping on Thanksgiving night. If that was me, I would not go shopping on Thanksgiving night. I know some people who did and when they told me that they went shopping on Thanksgiving night, I was actually a little bit disgusted with them. On a happier note, the tradition of sitting around the dinner table on Thanksgiving and enjoying family is still alive in my family. I think that we are the perfect embodiment of my definition of the holidays. We are able to come together as a group and just hang out and have fun. Now for the meaning of Christmas, I can’t get too deep into that because I don’t want to talk about religion with you. But to put it plain and simple, the meaning of Christmas to me is basically love and happiness.

Now to go on to what I did over Thanksgiving. Over Thanksgiving I did a lot of relaxing, it felt great, because I was kind of busy last year. One of my helpers got me my own personal Christmas tree and we are going crazy trying to decorate it. My assistant and I have made a couple ornaments to go on the tree. Making ornaments is fun! We even made brownies which my family and I shared at Thanksgiving. They were delicious! The day before Thanksgiving, my grandparents, and my mom and I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Reading.  The concert was a lot of fun. They played a lot of good music! They even played music off of their new album, Letters from the Labyrinth. They sounded really nice. Did you know, that for their song, Christmas Eve in Sarajevo, when it sounds like there are children singing, it’s actually just female singers. That surprised me. I was not expecting that. I thought for sure that there were children singing. I really enjoyed the performance. If you get a chance, you should go and see them in concert, it’s amazing.

What did you do over Thanksgiving?  Did you go over the river and through the woods? Or did you just stay home and relax?

Now for some important updates that are going on with the budget.

Pennsylvania still does have a budget. Although I think we are getting somewhere, because last week I was supposed to go to meetings with legislators, but because they all got called back to Harrisburg, the meetings were all postponed. My assumption is that the politicians are being called back to vote or they have a really good idea on what they want to put into the budget. Hopefully, this means we are getting somewhere, but even if they pass a budget, I’m going to still meet with the legislators. I still want my story to be told. If I hear anything, I will keep you posted via Facebook or the blog.

What do you think about the budget impasse and how long it’s been since Pennsylvania has had a budget?

That’s about it, see you next time and remember it only takes one person to change the world.

Chandler J