I hope that you have enjoyed my Top 5 Christmas albums list. I hope that you will go out and give these albums a listen if you haven'y heard them already. I guarantee that they will be in your Christmas time music rotation. 

As a kid I use to love getting in the family car and driving to the Avenues (a neighborhood in the Inglewood area) to drive up and down a bunch of streets to view Christmas lights. It was a family tradition for many of us in the Los Angeles area. The residents in the Avenue's use to go all out every year. I think you couldn't move on a particular street unless you were willing to participate in the Christmas decorating tradition. Sadly as the years went by and the home owners got older each year less and less decorations were going up and soon the tradition died. (STILL SUCKS TO DRIVE OVER THERE DURING CHRISTMAS AND SO NO DECORATIONS)

Thankfully there are some neighborhoods that still carry on their decorating traditions. Like my wife's favorite places to see Christmas lights

Candy Cane Lane- Woodland Hills, CA Lubao and Oxnard

Sleepy Hollow- Torrance CA Robert Rd, off of PCH 

We have started our own tradition of going to see Christmas lights at these two spots every year. And we will be taking Hudson from now on. Its cool that there are these designated neighborhoods that carry on the tradition from year to year but to me its sad to drive throughout the city and barely see people decorating their homes anymore. I mean I get it. Times are hard and people don't want to pay extra on their bills during the holidays. All I'm saying is, I wish that we could go back to a time where the economy was flourishing and people weren't so stressed and decorated their homes again. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so! 

Hey I'm just a kid at heart that wants to see lots of Christmas decorations and lights like I did as a kid.  I mean my city does the bare minimum when it comes to decorating the city. They just throw up a tree in the Forum parking lot and thats it. What a shame! They use to decorate every light pole in the city with something Christmas themed. I guess when those decorations got old and terrible they said the hell with the Christmas decorations. It really bums me out!

I sometimes wish I lived in a small town like the ones you see in those Hallmark Christmas movies where everyone is in the Christmas spirit and the whole town is decorated so nicely. Hey a guy can dream right?

During this time of year if you drive through the inner cities of Los Angeles, you will see the above decorations attached to the trees that line the streets. If you know me personally, you know that I have for years wondered what this is all about and why is it only in the inner city? Where did this idea come from? Who started it? Is there any significance to it? 

These are all questions that run through my head whenever I see it. So today as Hudson and I went on our midday walk, I noticed that this neighborhood street had a new way of doing things. Instead of using foil they used some sort of ribbon. I guess they though this was a little bit classier. LOL! I mean it does look a little better, a little. 

Its that time of the year again! My favorite time of the year. So I thought it would be cool to post Christmas themed topics for this whole month of December. It's my favorite time of the year because it seems as if everyone is a little nicer and more giving. So I cherish the holiday season, especially Christmas time. The kid in me comes out during Christmas. Though I don't get as many gifts as I did as a child I love the excitement of Christmas morning has never left me. My love of Christmas was instilled in my by my parents. They love Christmas, especially my Mom. She REALLY REALLY REALLY loves Christmas. Let me tell you we do it big for Christmas. Not big like those families you see with a million lights on their houses and decorations all over the place. But we do it bigger than your average. LOL! (I will do a post about her beautifully decorated house when it is complete.) Now that I have a son, I want him to experience Christmas the way that I did growing up and I hope that he will enjoy it the same way that I do. I'll mean a lot to me. 

So lets get started with the first post of my Christmas post-a-thon for December. I think that there are many factors that get me in the Christmas mood but nothing gets it started more than watching my favorite Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music for the whole month of December. (shout out to KOST 103.5 for playing Christmas music since the beginning of November.) Here we go, I'm gonna give you my Top 10 favorite Christmas movies. There are movies that won't make my list that you guys probably think should've but this list my favorites so don't get mad and me for my selections. It was a tough list to put together. I knew what my top 3 were from the jump but as I was getting deeper into the list it got tougher. 

10. 

All my life when I thought about having a child of my own, I only thought of the great experiences that would be had. Getting to witness milestones like holding them for the first time, seeing their first steps, hearing them say "Daddy" for the first time, getting to take him to his first basketball game and so on. I mention all this because no one tells you that you will have to go through moments with your child that you wish didn't have to experience. In this particular case I am talking about Hudson having to get his Immunization Shots. I ABSOLUTELY HATE THEM! 

     Now I know that these shots are suppose to protect my child from all these crazy diseases that are floating around. But aren't there safer ways to protect our children rather than shooting them up with these vaccines? These are the things that I'm concerned with but we will not get into that here, that is a conversation for me and my wife. Being a parent now, I give everything the side eye. I don't trust anything anymore. Who the hell knows what they are trying to do to us now. Hell we are eating genetically modified foods that are causing cancer in millions of people around the world. That is why my wife and I pray against anything in  these shots that may be harmful to our baby boy! Anywho,  let me not get into that on this post and lets get back to why I hate these shots so much. 

     Seeing your kids reaction to these shots is the main reason that I hate them, then its how it makes him react afterwards. To hear your kid cry like you've never heard broke my heart the first time we had to take Hudson. Today we had to go back for his 6 month shots and I think this one was the worst. I was holding him while the nurse was giving him the shots and he was screaming and gave me this look as if to say "Dad why are you letting them do this to me? HELP ME!" I almost cried with him. (DAMMIT! I just got sad thinking about it again.) Those are moments that I wish I didn't have to experience. Those are the moments that you don't think about when you think about having a child of your own. We all know that getting shots sucks but to see your child have to get them is the worst. Then Hudson isn't himself after getting the shots. He usually sleeps for hours afterwards. Normally this would be a great thing but this isn't. Then when he wakes up he usually looks bummed out. My wife and I are so bummed out after these shots. Its like we have done our baby wrong. It takes awhile to shake the bummed out feeling. The only cure is to see Hudson get back to his wild self again.

Needless to say I welcome the day when Hudson is done getting shots. Until then I will stress and hate these days. 

Oh and he is teething! (Thats a whole other post) 

Man! Its been a minutes since I was able to sit down at my desk and write a blog post.  For that I am truly sorry. There are lots of reasons why I've been away. The BIGGEST reason is getting adjusted to being a full time dad. The days of Hudson sleeping the day away are long gone and now this little guy keeps me on my toes and I always have to have an eye on him. (Can you believe he is already 6 months old???) The second factor has been my lack of focus and indecisiveness about what I want this blog to be and what information I want to share with my audience (if any of you guys are still out there. PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT and let me know if you're still hanging on to this blog of mine.) Three, I have taken on so many projects that my head has been spinning. I have a basketball clothing line and multi media company with my buddy Kyle called HARDWOOD BRAND and we also have a weekly podcast linked here. I have been working on my photography website for the longest. Who knew customizing a Wordpress theme would be so challenging? I sure didn't! Maybe I'm an idiot but I am determined to get this site up by myself before this year is up. The fourth and final factor has been just making time to create entertaining and informative content for you guys. I want to post quality content, not just put out lame post just to be posting. 

See I have struggled with what I wanted this blog to be about since I started it last year. (CRAZY!) At first I wanted it to be kinda like a Hypebeast where I post things that I found on the internet that peeked my own interest. But then I thought that was lame and there are millions of blogs that do that already. After months of thinking and brainstorming and more thinking and more brainstorming, I now have a clear idea of what I want this blog to be. 

It will be unquietly D.HILL! I'm gonna start off posting once or twice a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays to be exact. You should expect content that revolves around fatherhood, adventures that Hudson and I go on, Hudson's favorite things, food spots that I love, Music that I am feeling, places I love to go, alittle style, possibly some vlogs from time to time and lots and lots of photos. This blog will be a place where I can be open and honest about the things that are going on. My hope is that you get to know who D. Hill is through the content that I post here. I want this to be real and authentic, and it will be. I want to take this blog to higher heights. So I hope that you all follow along and forgive me for being a freaking inconsistent, horrible blogger.  

(Photo Credit: Brian Demby)