Things we love about Christmas!

[Andy]

O.K. We have had our chance to vent about our holiday frustrations. To prove that I really am not much of a scrooge, I would like to start a thread to help get me in the holiday spirit.

Things that show me the holiday spirit and bring a smile to my face and heart:

Music - all types especially Celtic and sleighbells

Kid's faces - expectations, wonder, surprise, excitement

Movies - Lots of different ones - humorous, serious, inspirational

Concerts - When a Christmas one comes to town

Activities with the kids - like gingerbread house workshop and cookie decorating.

Red Kettles - I love how difficult child asks for change to give to every single kettle he comes in contact with.

Angel Tree - I love seeing communities come together to support our less fortunate children. All kids should have special gifts on Christmas.

See, I have the start of getting rid of my scroogy attitude. Help me scrunch it by sharing your favorite part of Christmas.

 

[KTMom91]

Cookies. Trader Joe's gingerbread people. Yum.

Presents. I love presents. I love giving them, getting them, watching other people open them...

The inflatables on my roof. I added two this year, for a total of three, and plan to get more on December 26, when they'll be 50% off, for next year.

Lighted yard displays. They're so pretty.

All the Christmas shows that I remember watching; Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, A Charlie Brown Christmas...and I remember my dad complaining every year because he hated the marionette looking figures. My brother and I would just laugh and keep watching.

 

[Fran]

Putting the ornament that I got as a gift when we moved into our first home 26yrs ago. It's a little 3.99 ornament and it is so precious to me. I love hanging it every year no matter where we live.

Making cookie press cookies with the boys. (I plan to make them with my son's this week even if they are both 6ft tall) Unfortunately they eat as many as they make. : )

Most of the Christmas music I hear.

I know people complain about them but I love to get newsletters from people who I never see. I love the pictures of their kids. I tape the kids pictures on the door in the kitchen even if I never met the kids. I like to know what they are doing. I don't mind if they are having a more successful year than I am.

 

[tiredmommy]

Music, baking... Duckie's high pitched scream as she yells "Santa's been here!" at, say 4:45 in the morning. I love watching the faces of the little old ladies in our church congregation as they watch the Sunday School's holiday presentation the weekend before Christmas. I like looking out my front window and seeing more cars showing up at the nursing home across the street, though I wish more visitors would come throughout the year. I especially love going to church on Christmas Eve.

 

[Lothlorien]

All the awesome food!!!!

Christmas parties.

I usually try to give a thought-inspired gift. I try to listen to people throughout the year and remember what they said they were looking for, needed or wanted and try to surprise them, so I love watching them open that gift.

Christmas bonuses!

Christmas music.

Going to the local Italian provision store the week before to pick up my order. They are always in a good mood.

I like that about the week before Christmas, most (MOST) people are in a really good mood. People smile at you and say Merry Christmas or Have a nice holiday.....People just seem nicer. Maybe it's a regional thing, since in other parts of the country people seem nicer all year round, but it's nice that people are nicer and more tolerant of each other during this time of year.

 

[goldenguru]

Oh the music for sure.

And I love the smell of the Christmas tree in my house.

I mostly love the Christmas story. Ya know - God's gift to mankind.

 

[meowbunny]

Well, other than everything, EVERYTHING! The baking, the shopping on Black Friday, the wrapping the gifts, the making gifts for my special friends and daughter, the music. Watching It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, then going to midnight mass. Looking around my house and finding another spot that can hold a candle or a knick-knack or some other Christmas item. I actually rearrange my house about 5 times before I'm satisfied. Moving the wisemen a little closer to the creche every day. Going shopping for the annual Christmas ornament with my daughter. Helping others less fortunate as much as possible -- from working the kitchens at the shelters, to helping sort toys for kids, to ringing the Salvation Army bell, to whatever other way I can find the way to volunteer. And the list goes on and on and on.

Sorry, I really do love Christmas, even when I'm dead broke, sick or whatever. The spirit of Christmas really does live on in my heart and in my home. May it live in yours.

 

[klmno]

There always seems to be moments where difficult child and I feel especially close- I think it's the quality time and relaxing watching a movie, talking, snuggled up on couch and chair in front of the fireplace with our dogs and NO PRESSURE to hurry up and do something that has to be done.

I do love giving the gifts that I don't feel obligated to give- the ones like just putting a small basket of stuff together for a neighbor or something like that. I love the angel on the tree that I have salvaged from my youth that my step-father bought and loved (yes- it's old- and I do mean salvaged). I love the reminder that the angel symbolizes someone greater and higher is watching over us.

A new one this year has been sending and receiving cards from others on the board- I have really enjoyed this and difficult child even gets excited when we get a card- I let him put it on the mantel after I read it.

But one of the best parts- I started buying Christmas ornaments from vacations and special places we go several years ago because difficult child never bought anything that would last with his "spending money" on trips- so now, I really love pulling out the ornaments and remembering the vacations and him saying "oh, yeah, we did this and that, and wasn't that so funny? and that was fun, Mom, can we go back?". It makes me feel like maybe I did something right and it's so nice to remember good times. I hope he keeps these ornaments long after I'm gone, whether he uses them or not, just so maybe they'll jog a few memories for him.

 

[Marguerite]

I've said it before, but one day I would like to experience a proper white Christmas. But it's so very different to what I always experience as Christmas. We can recognise a white Christmas because a lot of our movies and TV shows especially in the past, come from the Northern Hemisphere, so we see so many Christmas plots which have snow as the climax of the story.

But for me, a good Christmas is -

1) Singing Christmas carols in the street (we used to do it on the back of an old truck) on Christmas Eve, enjoying the warmth of the night with the late, crimson sunset and the pulse of the cicadas like a wraparound metronome guiding the singers. It's changed now, but there is still the neighbourhood connection with friends and total strangers, wrapped up in the Christmas story and the heat of the summer. Besides, those shepherds in the Christmas story were out in the fields watching their sheep. They wouldn't have been doing THAT in the middle of winter! So for us, the story fits the season, literally.

2) Sunburn, salt and surf as we head to the beach after Christmas lunch. Or those years when we took our Christmas dinner to the beach and spent the entire day there, trying to eat with 20 of us trying to pass the chicken or the ham, to someone four picnic tables away.

3) Listening to my favourite Christmas song as a kid, "Six White Boomers" by Rolf Harris. They used to play it on the radio every year and I would wait by the radio for it. It's the story of how Santa comes to Australia and swaps the reindeer for six large white (because they're older and grey) Red Kangaroos who are better equipped to pull the sleigh round the outback. The story is how Santa rescues a baby joey at the zoo and helps him find his mother; it's a lovely story.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlSsffF2xhA

4) Being with family and friends, relaxing, talking, trying foods we never eat at any other time of the year.

Marg

 

[Hound dog]

Listening to Burl Ives singing Christmas songs from Rudolf.

Watching It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th street in origninal black and white.

Making homemade cocoa and popcorn for the grands while they watch xmas cartoons. (the same as I did for my kids)

 

[Wiped Out]

Christmas Eve Mass.
Christmas music-I love it.
Christmas movies especially It's A Wonderful Life and Christmas Story
Giving gifts
Holiday foods (although I don't do much baking anymore-just don't have the energy)
Christmas decorations
Time spent with family
Snow (but only until the day after New Year's)
Don't laugh at this one-holiday sweaters! A friend and I wear them every day to work in December-our classes love them!

 

[Numina]

Marguerite-That's the 2nd time I've heard of that song this week and I've never heard of it before in my life, lol.

I love the lights. I love the way the room feels when it's dark and the only illumination is the tree. I feel like the air is full of promise and possibilities.

 

[timer lady]

I love the traditional music while baking & decorating the house. Like Fran, I love the memories behind the ornaments we've collected over the years.

I'm downloading some music this year as I cannot find my favorite music done by the Seattle Men's Choir & I love the Vince Guaradelli (Charlie Brown Christmas) CD of Christmas music.

And putting out that cookie & glass of milk or cup of hot cocoa for Santa.

 

[Lothlorien]

But one of the best parts- I started buying Christmas ornaments from vacations and special places we go several years ago because difficult child never bought anything that would last with his "spending money" on trips- so now, I really love pulling out the ornaments and remembering the vacations and him saying "oh, yeah, we did this and that, and wasn't that so funny?

KLMNO, I do the same thing. We've been getting an ornament each place we go, even on just day trips (if we can find one), since we started dating. So, now I have 14 years of onaments to open each year. I'm not a chatchke (how DO you spell that) collector, but I collect old fashioned Santas and Christmas ornaments from each place we visit. It's special opening them up each year and putting them on the tree.

 

[Lothlorien]

Marg...cute song. I always love hearing about your Christmas stories in Australia. I would love to spend at least one Christmas there, among the locals, not in a tourist area, just to see what it is like.

 

[hearts and roses]

The lightness in the air; people seem more outgoing, friendlier and accommodating.

Sending out Christmas cards.

Picking out our tree, decorating our tree and marveling over new ornaments and the older ones, especially those with special meaning or those that were homemade.

I love when it's late at night an the house is quiet, all the lights are out except the tree and we just sit and look at it.

Making H stay up late with me on Christmas Eve after the girls go to bed and we bring up all the gifts for under the tree - yes, at 19 and 21 they still go along with us. Haha.

A snow storm on Christmas and everyone's holiday lights are still on. We go for a walk in the stillness and it's just magical.

Watching my girls go through their stockings - it's their favorite thing to do. And they still do this at the foot of our bed in the morning before we all go out to the tree.

The look on a family member's face when the open up a gift and it's a surprise they didn't think they'd see!

The food made and shared. The all day grazing.

The phone calls wishing a Merry Christmas and saying "I love you - wish we were together".

The time spent away from work and at home with my H and dds.

 

[Jena]

Andy this was a great idea, I have a feeling i've upset some by that thread........oh well not my intention.

So, my favorite thing is getting a real tree and the smell of pine cones, cuddling up at night with difficult child and watching christmas movies, that feeling xmas eve when difficult child is all excited about the next morning, it brings me back to memories when I was little.

I like being a mom, especially around xmas time i'Tourette's Syndrome like getting to relive your childhood through our kids in a sense, thru their eyes.

Sorry guys i'm soo not a scroooge................:snowing: