Holiday Season

This weekend is our 6^th Annual Progressive Dinner with our friends. We set the date a few years ago for the first Saturday in December to kind of kick off the Holidays. This week you will find that every home involved in the dinner is planning and scurrying to make everything perfect for their guests, including our home.

Last night Mark and I took on the task of decorating the outside of our house so that it looks festive and inviting. There have been a couple of discussions about colored lights versus white lights and I have had to put my foot down about placing our white lighted reindeer anywhere near my porch where I have a lovely holiday display that features colored lights. I tried to explain that I want the eye to flow as it gazes at our home and by adding the reindeer with its white lights, it would ruin the flow. I know Mark thinks I am nuts, but it's the holidays and he expects nothing less.

I love the holidays! I love the lights and the music and the excitement. I love surprising my children on Christmas morning and I LOVE the Christmas stockings. When it comes to the holidays I can feel my heart puff up just like it did for the Grinch when he felt all the love from the Who's in Whoville. There is nothing better than driving around on Christmas Eve with my family looking at the light displays on everyone's homes, which brings me back to why it is so important to me to have the outside of my house bright and cheery.

I am not one of those people who will cover my house with a light blanket or set the lights to flash to music and I also am not a fan of Christmas music before Thanksgiving either, but the day after Thanksgiving, gang way, because I am chomping at the bit to start my holiday engines. My kick off as you may recall is the early morning shopping trip on Black Friday and it just gets bigger and better each day after that.

I was thinking back yesterday and remembering how my Mom would make Christmas so special every year. She just loved the holiday season and she has passed that love on to me. I can think of no greater treasure to pass on to my children then to love the holidays. The real trick would be carrying that same feeling into the rest of our year. That is not an easy task and something that deserves a shot as well.

The next few weeks will be a fever pitch of activities culminating with heading to church on Christmas Eve and then heading home for dinner and our annual drive to check out all the Christmas lights throughout our area, but first we have to get ready for the progressive dinner. One thing is for sure, even though it was 29 degrees and we were freezing our digits off, we ended up doing a pretty nice job on our lights, if I do say so myself. Maybe you will have to drive by and take a look. It is just a simple and understated display, but it is festive and that is what really counts as your guests walk through the door. Welcome to the holiday season!