Happiest Time of Year

I am so excited that it's finally Christmas time. Everyone knows I wait all year for this. What have I been doing? Decorating the house, painting and doing some Christmas shopping. So far I've got 3 people taken care of, but I have a couple more to go. How are you doing on your Christmas shopping so far?

Everyone loves (and hates at times) this part of the year. I mean, I usually love the holiday season but then again people can get totally rude and annoying during shopping trips and some people can be downright grinchy. And after an arduous trip to the mall I can be a little Grinch myself. However, I do these things to keep the inner Grinch at bay:

See Christmas lights. I love to go around to neighbors and look at everyone else's light displays. Some people can get really creative and Daniel absolutely loves the lights. We also take him to The Symphony of Lights, it's a local light show that the Howard County hospital puts on every year for charity.

Donate to a charity. There are plenty of different charities to donate to during the holidays. Toys for Tots, Salvation Army, etc. Everyone who has some extra money should donate a present or something! It's the season of giving, isn't it?

Decorate! Obviously I decorate to my heart's content. We make decorating our Christmas tree an event. We turn on Christmas music, make hot cocoa and make the event as festive as possible. I love to decorate outdoors and indoors.

Go caroling! It's pretty unheard of in this day and age but I used to go caroling in my neighborhood with my friends. We got sheet music, huddled together in the cold and sang Christmas songs outside our neighbor's doors. We usually got free cups of hot chocolate or egg nog for our efforts. And it's always fun to hear people singing from inside the house. I would love to go caroling again if I could ever get enough people who would want to do it.

Watch Christmas movies. My favorite is Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I love both movies and any time one or the other comes on around Christmas it really feels like the season. There are other great Christmas movies, of course.

Spend time with family and friends. It's always hectic this time of year but it's nice to make time for your friends and family that you may not have seen a lot. I like to hang out with friends who come home from school during this time and visit family. Seeing people who know and (have to ) love me grounds me.

I hope everyone is having a good start to the holidays. So far we've had zero snow but I hope that changes soon! And for your amsuement, I leave you with my collection of holiday scented candles from Yankee Candle. Can you say "obsessed"?