Mission Happy Holidays

It's interesting to see events unfolding and understand the insight I received earlier this year concerning the holidays. It was back in July and there were Hallmark Christmas movies galore. Perhaps that's what sparked the idea or perhaps it was going through my audio files and coming across some old recordings of my church choir singing Christmas music. It could have been that, because I started thinking about how choirs normally begin practicing for the holidays when September begins, and it wasn't too far away at that time. I missed singing in the choir, and for some reason it came to me that Covid wasn't going to be gone during the holidays. It also came to me that the restrictions would still be in place and people wouldn't be able to do a lot of the fun things they'd traditionally do. I felt this strong sense that I needed to do something to ease the struggles people might experience. Thus, my private choir and music practices turned into a full blown Christmas project. Mission Happy Holidays was underway, with the emphasis on the happy. 

This project also included more than music. At that time the only way I knew how to share my music on social media was to turn it into a video, so I decided to try out an amazing thing I discovered during Christmas of 2019. I figured out how to add animation to my photos. I needed to do some Christmas photo animations, but oddly enough some of the pictures with the variety I wanted were taken during my trip to Disneyland in December of 2019. I combined them with the music and was ready to share them, when I discovered I needed to take care, because some of the songs were dealing with potential copyright issues, which I don't want. As a result, I took the songs off and replaced them with YouTube approved songs, some which actually fit better than the original. As I expressed in an earlier post, I questioned a little about whether or not this was something I should have taken on, but as time went on, it began to become a little more clear.

The mission to share my pieces of music were limited, because of the copyright concern, but I kept the videos, and it seems as if that was the part of this project that may have been the most needed. As I worked on with the project and began to come close to finishing up, I watched as the Disney community, guests and CMs alike experienced heartbreak after heartbreak when jobs were lost and the continued closures began to take a toll on the communities. I have seen people living there, not necessarily connected to Disney, begin to wear out and their hope is dim with all of the restrictions and quarantines. I watched--and continue to watch--my YouTube postings, and my most watched videos are the Disneyland ones. It appeared that those animations were possibly needed to cheer someone when Disney, for the first time, had its hands tied. It was worth a try anyway. I thought at least a few of my videos would be appreciated. Many of the animations are holiday ones and not connected to Disneyland for those who aren't into that thing, though I still think they'd be fine with what I did.

As my previous post shows, I got a little excited about the thought of sharing. It was almost like I was the one coming on stage. The anticipation was great, and now after sharing a good part of my things over social media, I might say it's been fascinating to watch the response. As usual, some things got more attention than I expected, and others that I thought deserved attention are still waiting to be discovered, but overall a good response. In each of my places, I've had at least one person enjoy it, and that's basically the whole point of this thing. I figure if it helps one person, then it's a success, so I'm considering it quite successful. There are a few more animations coming, and a few of my music ones that appear to be fine to share. Most of them are of me playing the flute, but I do have one of me singing Stille Nacht (Silent Night--in German).

This is one that posted today, and another one is available at midnight tonight. They are my most favorite out of the things I did.