Christmas Time

One of my favorite memories of growing up was waking up during the Christmas season, getting  ready for school and then walking into the living room to see the Christmas tree all lit up.  It just made the day seem so special, and I remember pausing at the entrance just to look the the tree.  I remember asking Mom if they kept the tree on all night, but she just said she always turned it on in the morning.  I loved that.

Every Christmas season was very busy.  We had family parties, school concerts, work parties, etc.  Thinking back, I remember those things, but I also remember the little things even more.  Like waking up on Christmas day with my stocking at the end of my bed.  Since we were usually tired from the night before, we never got up early on Christmas and it was also so fun to lazily wake up and look at the stocking.  Usually we would let Mom and Dad sleep longer.  Most Christmas' us kids would wake each other up, then sneak down to the living room and look at the presents.  We would never touch them, but we would look at which ones had our names on them.  I remember one year their was a great big box with Ben's name on it and it was very light (We did touch that one).  For the life of us we could not guess what was in that huge box.  I remember talking about it forever.  It ended up being the deer Dad and him had shot together and Dad had got it mounted, the perfect gift.

Once Christmas (that we stayed home) we had got a lot of snow and after opening presents we headed outside and build the most magnificent snow castle.  It had icicle windows and was taller then Ben.  We made a bed inside, a refrigerator  chair and tunnel entrance.  We were soaking wet when we came inside but it was the coolest thing we had ever made.

We had some special Christmas traditions.  Ben's snowman on top of the Christmas tree made from a toilet paper roll, all the handmade ornaments, setting up the nativity scene (and changing/moving it hundreds of times because we liked to play with it and set it up all different ways), the Santa that we would put Christmas letters into, and of course, the "Very Berry Christmas" advent calendar  where the bear would move all through the house till he found his family on Christmas eve.

Looking back, Christmas was never about the presents.  Mom always worried we didn't have traditions.  WE did mom.  It was Dad being home.  Icicles on the house.  Being together as a Family.  The tree.  Big colorful Christmas lights on the fence (because those are the very best, huh Dad?), snow forts and angels, Christmas sugar cookies, the beautiful presents mom handmade for neighbors/people dad worked with, and serving others.  Christmas will always be special to me.

Lauren