Well, here we are…December 24th. My favorite day of the year, aside from the first day of autumn. A day where excitement is high and “Scrooges” are few. A day where children reach their height of anxiety and where parents reach their height of insanity. A day where we allow ourselves to feel a tingling of anticipation for what’s to come…Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve also ushers in another milestone for me this year as well. Tomorrow, Miracle on 32nd Street will have been in operation for 1 month and 22 days…not a tremendous milestone in terms of length or significance…but an important reflecting point because of the original aim of this site.
Back on November 2nd, I laid out my goals and aspirations for this blog: to perform one random act of kindness, every day, up until New Year’s Eve. These “random acts of kindness” quickly became labeled as RACs, or Random Acts of Christmas. Through my purposeful actions, I wanted to inspire “Christmas spirit” within myself, and, most importantly, within those whom I interacted with. I had spent far too many Christmas which fizzled out by the time the Big Day rolled by, and I wanted to find a way…any way…to revive that long lost Christmas cheer I had harnessed so long ago.
An experiment. A challenge to fulfill. A place of laughter. A hobby. An outlet for “do-gooding” and creative writing. These are all labels which have fit my blog along its short journey thus far. And, as New Year’s Day gets closer and closer, I wonder what other labels my blog will take on once the original project has crossed the finish line.
Originally, I never intended this blog to document anything but my RACs. As I got lost in the world of Blogging, however, I became a member of a much larger, funnier, more poignant picture. I began to frequent other blogs which made me laugh, cry, think, and re-think. I developed a core of “friends” on Word Press who have stuck by me through good posts and bad. I have learned some of the necessary tools to be a good blogging friend (i.e. re-blogging, re-Tweeting, commenting, trackbacks, etc), and have become entrenched in a reciprocal world of writers, photographers, humorists, and thousands of others who claim a small home in the Blog-O-Sphere.
In other words, I got hooked. I no longer had a blog with a time-sensitive goal…I became a blogger, through and through. I have subscriptions, and I subscribe to sites. I have followers, and I follow others. I “Like” great posts, and re-blog about the ones I admire. I manage my site comments, while simultaneously tracking my own. I check the Freshly Pressed every day to find new writers and offer my two cents on their offerings. I tweet. I Facebook. I StumbleUpon. I go through all of the motions a hard-core blogger partakes in…finally, I’m a real blogger!
Miracle on 32nd Street 