Christmas Love

Anyone who knows me well knows that I absolutely LOVE Christmas! Growing up preparing for Christmas was a BIG deal on our house. All the Christmas prep had music involved. Whether it was Mom playing the piano and us girls singing Christmas songs or having music blaring from the stereo, there was always Christmas music playing in our house. Putting up the tree was always a family affair. I love to turn off the lights in the house and just have in the Christmas lights. (I actually love it so much that I put up Christmas lights in my dorm room and they were pretty much on all the time unless my roommate and I were both gone.) We would spend a whole day making cookies and treats. One of my favorite memories combines said treats and Mom playing the piano. (If my family reads this, they will know exactly know exactly what I'm referring to.) I love to give gifts. So much that for years I would buys gifts for everyone. As I have gotten older, my love of gift giving hasn't diminished but it has been harder to find something special for everyone I would like to give gifts to. I know. I know. I could always make gifts, but that takes time and involves planning not to mention some creativity. Two on those things I am not so good at. I could find/make the time to make things if I wasn't such a procrastinator. That's where the planning comes in. I cannot plan for Christmas months in advance. (Procrastinator remember?)

This year I am more in the Christmas mood than I have been in years. It could be that we had our fist major snow fall over a months ago and have had more than 30" of snow already this month. As tired as I get of our 5 months of winter, for me, it wouldn't be winter with out the white stuff. I think the thing that is making it feel like Christmas is the fact that the kids are at an age where they truly understand Christmas. McKenna is my spiritual child. Over the years, she has made comments that have shown me that she (at a young age) believes in God and has a relationship with him that many people strive to have. I have even overheard her explaining to a classmate that presents aren't really what Christmas is about.

As always, our Christmas tree went up the weekend after Thanksgiving. A local radio station starts playing only Christmas music about that same time and my car radio has been tuned to that station for the past four weeks. With the kids being in school now, we were able to get all of our Christmas shopping for them done just after Thanksgiving. Last weeks the kids and I bought Mike his gift from them. Today we will be taking them to purchase their gifts for one another. We intentionally put that off so they don't tell each other what they picked out.

The big area where I have fallen short since that kids where born was in the baking department. Up until this year we have NEVER made Christmas cookies. We have always relied on the box of cookies and candy that my Mom sends after she and my sister have their all days baking marathon. we have also never left cookies and milk out for Santa. This year the kids started asking why. So, on Sunday we baked. We made sugar cookies, one other type of cookies and chocolate blobs. They kids had a blast. They enjoyed adding all the ingredients for the chocolate blobs than dropping them to the parchment paper to cool. They did a good job cutting out the cookies. They LOVED frosting and decorating the sugar cookies. I was so proud of them and how they cooperated with no arguments. And they managed to keep things fairly clean in the process.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!