Christmas Eve

My Favorite Things About Christmas
1. God, out of love, humbled himself to take human form and live with us. Immanuel: God With Us.
2. Lights and candles everywhere
3. Family and friends getting together
4. Christmas Music
5. The smell (and taste) of pumpkin pie
6. Eggnog Latte
7. The Charlie Brown Christmas Special
8. The movie, A Christmas Story - not to be confused with A Christmas Carol. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean. I hope you have seen it.

I know it should be 5 or 10 to be an ideal number, but this is everything I wanted to include and there is nothing else that I really want to add.

This year is a rather low-key but nice Christmas. We are going up to spend the day with Grandpa like we did on Thanksgiving. The dinner will be much simpler, though. Here is the menu: Ham, scalloped potatoes, salad, baby brusselsprouts, Pillsbury crescent rolls, and pumpkin pie. I know, I know, but we actually like brusselsprouts.

I’m not going to the midnight service at my parent’s church, though. (No, I don’t go to the same church as my parents. I have attended occasional holiday services with them at their church, though.) I closed at Lane Bryant twice this week and things have been busy. I just don’t have the energy to do it. I went last year and enjoyed it, even though it is terribly long. My church has an earlier service, at 7:00 and I’ll go there and spend the rest of the evening relaxing quietly alone with beautiful Christmas music and candles. If I can’t get my parents to watch the Charlie Brown special with me this afternoon, then I’ll watch it before I start the music.

There was debate about when to open our presents this year. Because we want to get on the road quickly so that the ham can get in the oven in time for an early dinner we thought tonight might be a good time. I want to sleep a little later and keep the morning simple. We ended up deciding to wait until tomorrow night after we have returned from Grandpa’s. That sounded best. We won’t be overtired and we can just have some quiet, relaxed time opening a few gifts after everything is over. There are very few presents, actually. I couldn’t even afford to buy any this year. I’m giving cards- and they still aren’t in the mail. I know, I’m bad. But a couple times when I was in Korea there were no presents from anyone, and it didn’t really matter. I don’t care much about that, except it is fun when you can take the time to plan special gifts and see people open them up. It is also great fun to be surprised with something wonderful that you never thought of.

I hope that you are having a Merry Christmas wherever you are, celebrating with people you love.