What I love about Christmas

I can't believe it's time for the holidays. It sneaks up on me every year, but this year I feel like my life is zooming by like never before. I do like Christmas, but I am a little creeped out that it's upon me already. Here are my favorite things about the season, in no particular order.

• Jesus! I love the nativity story. It's so amazing how God arranged for the Savior of the world to be born in such a humble way... Mary (a teenage virgin), the manger (not even in a real house), surrounded by animals (I barely let my bulldog near my newborns, much less a cow). I love reading the nativity story with my kids Christmas morning.
• The advent calendar. Everybody gets so excited to see what is in store each day. We used to have the playmobile one. I was horrified when I took it out of the package and realized the last day you open up SANTA! What? Santa? He was no where to be seen in Bethlehem. He looks ridiculous next to the farm animals. He never made it to the little box. I hurried to the Christian book store and bought miniature wise men, mary, joseph, and baby Jesus. I threw out Santa Clause. My favorite advent story is when Scout was 3. She used to bounce around the room when we'd read the advent each night. Every day we would add a little phrase to the story. We never thought she was listening. That's when I realized she was an auditory learner, and that she had to move around. Around day 15 or so we finally asked her, "Scout, are you even listening?" and she said "YES!" and repeated each phrase verbatim the whole story from day 1.
• Christmas lights. I could drive around every night looking at them. Last year the girls and I discovered what everybody in Nashville already knew about: the mother of all neighborhoods, Christmas-decoration-wise. It's off Hillsboro road. Oh, man. I've never seen so many Christmas lights on one street. I can't wait to see it again. And there is one house in our neighborhood that decorates the roof with all kinds of things-- a fireplace, a Christmas tree with a train going around it, Rudolph, Santa, tons of little presents. This past weekend they started working on it. We drive by there (out of our way) every time we leave the neighborhood at night during the season just to check it out.
• Christmas cards. I obsess over mine. I have several photo sessions to get just the right picture (or pictures). I plan out my color scheme and layout, sketching it on paper and experimenting with different cardstocks. The kids do their Christmas artwork for it. And I go to work. With the exception of last year, I always hand make every one of them. I know, it's a little crazy. But I want it to be perfect, and I don't want to pay someone else to do it. I'd rather pay someone to do all the housework I neglect when I am working on them.
• Evening in December. It's a benefit for Daystar Ministries. We've been going since the Knestricks invited us back before we had kids. We get a table each year and LOVE IT! They have it at Chaffin's Barn. It's a box dinner and concert. This year it features Amy Grant and Marty Stuart, along with a bunch of others. We've seen Phil Vassar, the Fairfield Four, Sara Evans... I can't even remember all of them. It's the best thing ever.
• Stockings. I love seeing them hung over the fireplace. And I love watching the kids dig into them Christmas morning. What a fun tradition!
• Egg nog.
• Christmas music. I love love love Christmas music. But only from Thanksgiving night until New Years. Then I'm done with it.
• Decorating the Christmas tree. I like getting out all the ornaments and remembering where each of them is from. It's so nostalgic and a teensy bit sad. But I love looking at my tree, especially with the lights out. I'm hoping Bo will keep his hands off it this year.