Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year...partly because our little community totally rocks out Christmas celebrations. Our local tree lighting downtown, complete with hot cocoa and Brunswick stew, starts out the season with a bang. The following day we all join together again to watch the Christmas parade...most of the time in flip flops. {Florida, we're gaining on you.}
One of our traditions is to put the tree up the day of the Christmas parade. A tradition that comes from my childhood. Every year we would attend the parade, sometimes visit the winter carnival at the elementary school, then scoot home to put up our tree...all while listening to Dolly Parton's Christmas Hits on cassette tape. When Little Miss was little, I continued the tradition but instead of the winter carnival, we usually shopped for a new ornament or five at The Christmas Shop. This year was the last year The Christmas Shop would be open- and since they began their closeout sale in November- I couldn't bear to see the bare {slight pun intended} walls. I wanted to remember it how it looked when I was little- and for Little Miss to remember it how it was when she was little. So we skipped it, knowing a new tradition would have to take it's place eventually, but not this year. This year we sat out ornament shopping all together in honor of the fun memories we shared at The Christmas Shop.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we all enjoyed the silly visits from our Elf on the Shelf, Ruby. Her antics never cease to amaze us. {Except for that one night that she apparently got caught trying to fly back to the North Pole and had to remain in her original hiding spot...that was a perplexing morning- but we all made sure to stay quiet and get to bed early from there on out, to ensure that her magic wouldn't be seen.}
The night before Christmas, we baked cookies and went to Bub and Granddad's house for dinner. The turkey, the stuffing, the collards...{dear sweet baby jesus, the collards} it was all amazing. We were still full when I heard the stomping of tiny little seastar feet walking down the hall on Christmas morning.
"WAIT!!!" I said, dashing, prancing and dancing towards the living room. #reindeermoves
I stopped them just in time to get a picture of their faces as they ran passed us to check out their Santa stuff.
I, personally, think this was one of the best Christmas mornings yet. Thank you, little baby Jesus, for giving us a reason to celebrate with our family!
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