Seven.
If you're like me, you have yet to...
-- Make a shopping list
-- Buy any presents
-- Purchase gift wrappings, boxes, bows, tapes
-- Get a Christmas tree
-- Decorate said tree
-- Purchase groceries for Christmas dinner
-- Pull together a Christmas card list
-- Write out Christmas cards
-- Mail said Christmas cards
Why do I do this to myself?
Mostly because I hate all the obligations of Christmas.
Don't get me wrong. I'm no Scrooge. In fact, I really enjoy buying gifts for family and friends. I just hate shopping malls and strip centers that are bursting with people. I tend to do the online thing.
I usually catch the "last day to shop..." in order to get gifts before Christmas, all of which get wrapped on Christmas eve, but this year, I even missed that.
So off to those dreaded stores!
I'll get it together. I'm out of days off from work this year. Whenever that happens, I'm at my worst as far as getting into the spirit of things but everything always comes together in the end.
The things about the Christmas season that I love?
- Baking cookies and other sweet treats (I'll try not to overindulge)
- Putting up and decorating our Christmas tree
- Driving around to look at the decorated houses
- Visiting the Santa display in nearby Dover (it's a huge, highly decorated farm that people come from miles and miles around to see)
- Listening to Christmas carols and songs
- Watching Christmas specials on TV
- Reading Christmas-themed stories with my sons
- Teasing my sons with the countdown to Christmas
- Looking at the lighted tree, especially after everyone has gone to bed
- Seeing the happy smiles on the faces of my children on Christmas morn as they open their gifts
- Receiving Christmas cards and year-in-review newletters
- Reading and reflecting on the story of the birth of Christ in the Gospels
- Attending Christmas services
- Hunting down and attending a good Watchnight service on New Year's Eve to close out the sesason. (And it's a hunt down here in FL)
Are your Christmas activities all completed or planned out? What do you enjoy most about Christmas?
Peace & Blessings,
Patricia
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1 comment:
Yesterday I had a ball watching the children at church give their Christmas program. They did a hip-hop version of "The Little Drummer Boy" all wearing Santa hats and dark shades. Hilarious!
I love Christmas Eve, when both daughters and their families all come over for hot chocolate and we toast marshmallows in the fireplace.
Of course, the best is opening gifts with the grandkids on Christmas morning.
We gave up on sending Christmas cards years ago. Maybe I'm a grinch, but I think it's a useless tradition. People just throw them away in a few days ... Instead, we call family and close friends on Christmas Day, and I send e-cards to everyone else.
This year we also got rid of the big tree - gave it to my youngest daughter and got a 3-foot fiber optic tree that's incredible. It looks awful in the daytime because there are no decorations, but at night when it's plugged in, the ends of the branches twinkle in all different colors. Beautiful!
DH put lights on the bushes on each side of the front steps and hung garland with twinkling lights across the mantle. That's it!
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