Holiday spirit

Tonight and tomorrow, I'm at home with my parents -- partly since I didn't get to see them for Thanksgiving, and partly to get my Christmas decorations which have been living in their basement since I graduated college. As soon as I arrived, I was in the holiday spirit -- I had Christmas music playing, all the lights were on, and it's even colder here than it is in Charlotte.

This is one of my favorite times of the year, and I know I'm not alone in that feeling. What's even better, though, is being home during it all. I'm fortunate enough to have Christmas off this year, so I'll be back here in a couple of weeks for a little bit longer. But Ben & I haven't really decorated our place yet (Re: Christmas stuff at parents' house) and I haven't been listening to Christmas music on my own, so the holly & jolly hadn't quite made it to me yet.

I'm a very sentimental person, as is probably made obvious by 99% of my posts here, and something about little lights on a tree just amplifies that. My mom has three Christmas trees (we're big on it) but they left the main one undecorated so that we can decorate it together tomorrow. So many of the ornaments my parents use to this day are ones collected over the decades as my siblings and I grew up. Decorating for Christmas and celebrating the weeks leading up to it almost ensures that at least once a day, I'll smile and think of what the season felt like as a child.

Tomorrow, my mom and I will bake together — chocolate cherries and chocolate crinkle cookies — as we've done most years for as long as I can remember. I'm an alright cook, but I don't really ever bake on my own time, so my mom was right to be skeptical that I might not willingly choose to bake. She called me earlier this week to ask if I'd be interested and before she could even finish the question, I shouted yes. I had told Ben not ten minutes prior how much I hoped we'd pull out the recipe book.

I'm very fortunate to have so many wonderful memories associated with the Christmas season. There's still a few weeks before the big day, but to me, the build-up is magical in its own right.