Christmas

I love Christmas! I love putting up the tree (or in my case 3 trees-yes I am slightly obsessive) and as I pull out each ornament from the box and unwrap it from it's safe cocoon of tissue paper I am taken back to where I was when I bought or received the ornament. My mom had given us one with 2 snuggling snow-people on our first Christmas as a married couple when we were still starry eyed newly weds-only having been married a little over 3 months at that point. There is a fragile shell ornament that we bought on our honeymoon in the Bahama's-I remember standing in the street market with the hot sun beating down on us trying to decide on the perfect ornament to hang on our first tree. And of course now there hangs an ornament of a pudgy baby bear sucking on a pacifier and clutching a bottle to signify Evie's first Christmas. I even have an angel ornament from my Grandma dated 1984! I love the glowing lights on the tree, the soft velvet tree skirt, the glisten of the satin ribbons. I could go on and on-and I am still only on part one of why I love Christmas!

I also love presents-not necessarily receiving them although I think no matter how old I get I will always get a bit of a thrill from shaking a present with crisp wrapping paper and shiny bow while trying to guess what might be inside. I love picking out the perfect gift and then selecting the perfect wrapping paper complete with the matching ribbon and tag. And of course I love to coordinate all the presents under the tree because, well, this is me we are talking about and those kind of touches make me feel quite giddy!

I love Christmas music-the old stuff and the newer, re-made songs-I love them all. I love to sing along to them and dance to them (although the singing may be off key and the dancing downright scary) I also love to wrap the above mentioned presents while listening to Christmas music, and although I may act irritated when radio stations and stores play Christmas music before Thanksgiving, deep down I am really thrilled, because if I could get away with it I would probably listen to it all year long.

I love the light displays and every time I pass by a colorfully decorated lawn I am reminded of "The Way of Lights" display and the Precious Moment's Chapel in Carthage, Missouri that my family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins would go to every year, and although I am quite sure it was the same every year, it always felt like it was the first time I was seeing it.

I love all the food-baking and decorating Christmas cookies, candy canes, hot-chocolate, baked ham-again I could go on and on-no wonder I gain so much over the holidays. But really, it is totally worth it!

I love the classic movies-"It's a wonderful Life", "How the Grinch stole Christmas", "a Christmas Carol" and many more.

I love Christmas! Can you tell? I am telling you, Christmas to me is like catnip to a cat or crack to a drug addict-not trying to promote the use of illicit drugs here people, but seriously I think Christmas has a strange effect on me-I get giddy and silly, I feel like a kid again, I have the best memories of past Christmases and look forward to the future as I pass these traditions down to Evie, and hopefully when she is almost 30 (not that I am that old yet, of course) she will still feel like a kid again-at least for the month of December!