I Love Christmas

With only TWENTY days until Christmas, I am as anxious as a kid waiting for their mom to hand them a cookie!  I simply love everything about Christmas.  The cookies and milk.  The tree and outside decorations.  Christmas dinner with my family.  The smiles on everyone's faces as they open up their gifts.

Thanks to my loving hubby, we had our tree up and decorated before Thanksgiving.  I have to admit that he did an awesome job of decorating it without me.  When we first met he wasn't big on holidays and didn't even own a single Christmas decoration.  It was sad because I guess being shuffled from foster home to foster home foster kids don't ever really get a sense of the importance of Christmas and establishing family traditions.  I am grateful that my family and I have been able to show him what being a true family is all about.

I love how excited he gets about putting up the tree and how he offers his input on how to hang the stockings.  I appreciate the fact that he has good taste in wrapping paper and name tags.  However, his wrapping skills on the other hand could use some more practice.  He always manages to surprise me with the best gifts.  Even though, I feel at times he doesn't notice when I've got my eye on something, he does.

I think that the Christmas season truly brings out the good in most of us.  While gift shopping can be stressful overall I feel that many of us manage not to get lost or caught up in the commercialization of it all.  We remember and take the time to personalize and send out Christmas cards.  After all in a world where many of us have been reduced to sending birthday wishes via a tweet and virtual gifts via Facebook, I get a warm and loving feeling when I open my mailbox and see a heartfelt card waiting to be opened.

I grew up watching my mom throw family Christmas parties in our small single wide 3 bedroom, 2 bath mobile home.  We were far from rich or even middle class, but she somehow managed to be the perfect hostess.  She's stay up all night the day before cooking and we'd help her clean.  She'd make her famous sparkling holiday punch and press our hair the day of.

I enjoyed helping her mail out Christmas cards and wrapping gifts.  Most of all, I loved the closeness that these activities gave me and my mom.  Now that I have Moo and another little one on the way, I'm happy to have children of my own to pass these traditions to.  So, I hope that each of you will use this holiday season not just as a way to get gifts but to truly bond with your family and friends.

Happy Holidays!!

PS-I'm sending out Christmas cards!!  Are you?  I have some extras left and would love to help give someone a little holiday cheer