it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

every year, Christmas time at my household has been the same (not that i'm complaining). the saturday after Thanksgiving, our Christmas tree comes out of hiding and the rest of the decorations go up. it's always a special day because Grandma gets to help decorate and it's really the first day we start listening to christmas music and get into the Christmas spirit. then not much else goes on until Christmas Eve, where we attend the service at church...it's always a skit of the nativity scene which stars the entire congrigation. after that, we head home and open a present from my mom's parents which is always an ornament for each kid. That way, when we move out and have our own Christmas tree's, we will already have a collection of ornaments started. I think it's a cute idea and I hope my parents continue that tradition with my children. After opening our ornaments, we get into our pajama's and get the cookies and carrots ready for Santa and his reindeer. we can't forget to spread the magic reindeer food (oatmeal and glitter) all over the front lawn. once all of that is done, we hang the stockings over the fireplace and then hop into bed and wait for Santa to come. when i was younger, my brother and i use to wake up at 2 in the morning and go down with flashlights to examine all the presents before morning. then he would come back to my room, discuss what we thought were in the biggest packages and fall asleep in sleeping bags until 8am, when we would go down to wake up mom and dad. that tradition has stopped since we've both grown a little older, but 8am is still our wake up call for mom and dad. way too early for me, but my sister enjoys every minute of it, so i wake up for her. once mom and dad are awake, we open our stockings first, then our "Santa present", and then the rest of the presents. after all the excitment is over, we have donuts for breakfast (the only time of year when that is allowed in our household).

i love our christmas traditions. it's my favorite time of year. but i think all these years i've taken them somewhat for granted. i've forgotten that some people don't get to experience all of these things. i just learned yesterday that someone close to me never experienced all of these things. they each got one present but never did stockings or christmas music or lights. the children of the family didn't even know about stockings and that Santa put presents in those too. so this christmas, i will savor every minute of it. the music. the tree. the lights. the stockings. family. everything.

and i wish everyone a happy holiday season and that you savor every minute of yours.