I love Christmas Time. I’m not the type to put the tree up the day after Halloween, but I am listening to Christmas music by the day after Thanksgiving.
Christmas is really the only holiday to have it’s own “time”, really. There’s no “feeling of Easter” or wonder about what will happen on the 4th of July. No matter when you find it appropriate to start celebrating Christmas, chances are it’s more than just a few days before hand.
My parents always made Christmas special. I credit them completely with instilling an absolute joy, wonder, amazement and pure love over the holiday. There is a favorite anecdote that usually crops up around the Thanksgiving table. “Remember the time Merannda was so excited that she threw up on Christmas Eve?” It’s cute when you think about a little girl in pigtails losing her mind over Christmas, the story is perhaps less endearing (I like to think more so) when it’s revealed that I was 16 years old.
It’s not that my family was well off and I was expecting awesome toys every year. Admittedly we were blessed and better off than most, but it was the way those presents were presented! The way our “Santa presents” sat unwrapped under the tree, carefully nestled among the wrapped ones. It was the small gifts and candy peeking out from the tops of the stockings, begging to be emptied. The smells of cinnamon rolls in the oven and coffee percolating. We called it “Christmas Explosion”, and it’s the perfect way to describe those first morning moments.
My parents didn’t have to go that extra mile, but I’m so glad they did. I’m still working on perfecting my elf skills. If I can do half as well as them, then hopefully my son will grow know the feeling of Christmas Time as I do.
More from Oh, Honestly.