I love Christmas – it is my favorite time of the year!  In fact, I always get a little melancholy when it seems to stop so
abruptly! I relish the time spent with family, all the baking and candy making, Christmas carols (see previous blog entry), decorating, etc.  I love lighting the Christmas tree in the early hours of the morning when the house is still asleep and all the world is hushed by the silence of the moon;  sipping my morning coffee .  . . gazing at the tree and watching the twinkling lights reflect the character of each and every ornament brings about a tranquility that sooths my soul. One
of my favorite things about Christmas is unpacking the boxes and boxes of decorations.  It seems like each one comes with its own memory and reason why it’s special – perhaps it reminds me of a special time, a loved one, or both!  To me, all of these “treasures”are a large part of why Christmas is my favorite time of the year.  
I have a little plaque on my kitchen shelf that says “All hearts come home for Christmas”.  “Home”.  Home isn’t necessarily a physical place – it is a place that dwells inside our hearts. A place where we are loved unconditionally and surrounded by warmth and fond memories.  A place where everything is familiar and we can let our hair down and be
ourselves.  We wish you a very merry Christmas and may you hold the magic and peacefulness of Christmas and its
many blessings in your heart throughout the new year! 

Our family has grown! We gained a wonderful son-in-law on October 13th!   Congratulations to Sarah and Derek!  It seemed like their wedding day would  never arrive, then poof, in the blink of an eye, the long-anticipated day was here and every single moment of it seemed to pass all too quickly!  I think this “mother-of-the-bride” experienced every single emotion possible on our oldest  daughter’s wedding day. I don’t even know where to begin to describe how I felt when I saw Sarah and her dad coming down the aisle.  She looked so confident and exquisite; he looked so proud and just as handsome (if not more so) as the day I married him! Seeing the two of them sharing a special father-daughter glance now and then, smiling at family and friends as they made the trip down the long aisle of our  church, knowing David would soon give our little girl away to this wonderful man who stole her heart, made a flood of memories rewind so quickly through my mind!  I was reminded of the day I walked down that very same aisle on my father’s arm 27 years ago . . . I remembered the day she was born and I held her for the first time, the day her little sister Beth was born and she became a big sister, when she graduated from high school and left for college (that’s where she and Derek met!), and the day she called to tell us Derek proposed and she said yes!  Wow!  It was a beautiful ceremony – the scripture readings, vows and music were very touching and added so much heart and soul to the day. My sister played the organ and I think the stained glass windows shook when she played the Bridal March – goose bumps – talk about amazing!! Have I mentioned that Sarah was the most beautiful bride ever?  And that her sister, Beth, was the most attentive maid-of-honor there ever was - making sure her big sister's veil and gown were just adjusted just right with her every move!  But the real beauty was in this amazing couple standing on the altar of this glorious church before God, their family and friends declaring their love for one another.  When Father David introduced them for the very first time as Mr. and Mrs., I was squeezing David’s hand and thinking to myself, we are truly blessed!  He smiled at me and I knew he was thinking the exact same thing!  Welcome to our family Derek and congratulations to the bride and  groom - God bless you always!

I love Christmas music.  I could listen to it year round!  Seems like I can hardly wait for the day after Thanksgiving so I can "legally" listen to it and sing along without the people around me looking at me like I've lost my mind!!  But what's with some of the stuff on the radio?  Some of it just sounds stressful - so fast paced - rush rush - aaaahhh!!  Have you tried singing along to some of this stuff?  I thought I knew the words and melody to practically every Christmas song ever written (ok maybe not all of them, but a lot of them), but lately as I drive down the road, trying to sing along, it seems some of these artists add notes and words that just don't seem to belong in the "classic" Christmas songs. Some things are just better left alone - let's face it - nobody sings White Christmas like Bing Crosby. And absolutely, nobody, I mean nobody sings The Christmas Song (you know - Chestnuts roasting on an open fire), like Nat King Cole.  Granted, this is just my humble opinion, and I understand everyone enjoys different types of music.  Rather than keep desperately hitting the "seek" button on my car radio, hoping to find a Christmas song I can sing along to, I have decided to make a CD with all of my Christmas favorites on it and leave it in my car!  Less chance for road rage that way.  There is something soothing about good music. Don't you just love it when you hear a Christmas carol that reminds you of somebody and while you are singing along, a million pictures and memories of special times with that person come to mind?  This past Saturday, my mom, my sister Shell and oldest daughter, Sarah, were at my house for a Christmas baking day (we have to do it again when Beth gets home from college for Christmas - we missed her wit and humor.  Well, and let's be honest here - we could have used another pair of hands to roll all of that candy in to balls and dip it in to vast amounts of chocolate!) . . .anyway . . . we were baking and listening to Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Bing Crosby croon to the Christmas classics!  Their harmonious voices were the perfect background, setting the tone for a day we will all look back on and remember.  What is it about Christmas music that touches us so deeply sometimes?  Last week, Beth called me from college; she was walking to class and her hectic day suddenly came to a peaceful halt when she heard the choir rehearsing O Holy Night in the auditorium.  She told me it gave her goosebumps and brought tears to her eyes. (She inherited my emotional side - sorry Beth!).  She held her phone in the doorway of the auditorium so I could hear  . . . it brought a tear to my eye as well.  Perhaps I was taken by the glorious sound of the ESU Choir; perhaps I was touched by my daughter's emotion.  Maybe both.  Or perhaps I realized at that moment just how much I miss my youngest and how anxious I am to have her home for Christmas . . .