Christmas always brings out the kid in me. I always get very excited for my own children no matter how modest our Christmases are. Christmas truly does equal magic.
I think my favorite parts and just a few are:
First and foremost, celebrating the birth of Jesus, what a gift! Imagine knowing that your baby would save souls makes a Kindle look shabby, huh? (By the way, since I already have Jesus, I really want a Kindle.)
Putting up the tree (even though this year's tradition resulted in WW3 between two siblings that shall remain nameless; all I will tell you is it was the baby and the middle).
Hearing Christmas music, I am taken back to when I was a kid. I had this BEAUTIFUL Christmas carol book filled with all the classics. My best friend and next door neighbor, Stephanie, would bless (at least that's what we throught we were doing) all the neighbors in our subdivision with our caroling. We'd bundle up and go house to house belting out all the classics. We'd murder the high notes and put in all the "extras" in Rudolph (ie; "...had a very shiny nose, LIKE A LIGHTBULB!!"). Man, we thought we were pretty cute. I imagine to our parents we were and to our neighbors...well, they were very familar with our antics. :) Because I loved this tradition so much I recently took Alli and 2 of her friends and one of my present day best friends, Brandi, to go sing Christmas carols to Brad's grandmother. It was actually a lot of fun and the residents at the apartments seemed to enjoy us. Or maybe they were just humoring us. Anyway, I am guessing and hoping that is a memory that Alli will never forget.
Going to my papaw's out in the country, was also one of my favorites. I haven't done it since I was a kid but I can still remember his red brick floors, his ugly, tacky tree, and getting $10 in a bank envelope that I thought was $1,000,000. I remember riding home and it was always late and almost bedtime. There were times I could have sworn I'd seen Santa's sleigh and reindeer in the sky. I miss my papaw so much. I remember I ran into him at Target the Christmas before he died and he was really missing mamaw. I told him I would come and put up his tree for him and he had no interest. The magic was gone for him. Then, when I hugged him and told him I loved him anyway, even if he wouldn't put his ugly, tacky tree up, he just looked back at me, smiled and said "I love you, Mandy." Papaw was the only one who called me Mandy and I loved it.
Shopping with Brad Thanksgiving night has become another favorite tradition. We may leave the house with very little to spend but we always manage to stretch it into a great time. We laugh, and act silly, and just be together. Then, the nap the next morning is always icing on the cake.
My mother could make a stocking better than the real presents. She has this talent for finding wonderful and unusal treasures. I so wish I had this talent. Many, many Christmas mornings, I was as excited to see what was in my stocking as I was to see my actual presents.
This picture is our newest tradition in our house. You are looking at "Elf on a Shelf". He is a pixie elf that Santa has sent our house to watch the kids and report back to Santa. The kids have named him, "Buddy". Buddy only travels at night and comes back every morning. When he comes back, he has played some trick or brought some sort of small gift and is hiding in a new spot. This morning we found candy canes all over our tree. If I was guessing, I would say there were 42 of them. The kids were thrilled and are already to see what antics he pulls tomorrow morning. I hope we have Buddy for a very long time.
Traditions, to me, are so important because they mean safety. They mean love. They mean that someone cared enough about us to recreate a previous wonderful experience for us. Traditions are a great way to bring the magic to the ordinary. Thanks Mom and Dad, Granny and Granddad, and Papaw and Mamaw for teaching me so much about traditions.
I wonder, what are some of your traditions? I would love to hear them.
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