Christmas is coming !

Christmas IS coming and i think i have spewed out enough "opinions" to last awhile now.. so let's get down to some fun stuff... the holidays !!!

Christmas has always been my favourite holiday....... from the lights sparkling in the dark through the snow..... to the excitement of the kiddies as they write their lists to Santa........

It is a time of year when memories flood back....... mostly good memories of happy family times..

of my dad climbing into bed on Dec 24th whispering quiet words in my ear till i finally fell asleep......

of all the family crowded around 'saw horse' tables with paper tablecloths with poinsettias on them.. cousins and aunts and uncles .. and sipping seven up from a wine glass and feeling oh so grown up.......

of finding a perfect porcelain doll in the top of my stocking the year i was told i was "too big" to ask Santa for a doll...

of my dad lying under the Christmas tree regaling my eldest daughter (who was 3 or 4 at the time) with stories of Christmas fairies dancing in the tree and the proof was in the tinsel swaying in the branches above their heads....

of the year i was pregnant with that eldest daughter and sick sick sick with her.. and my mom coming down a week early to help me get ready......... of mom washing the kitchen floor on her hands and knees so it would be sparkling for the big day...... And on the fateful Christmas day.. my dad dropping the turkey - lock stock and barrel - over the clean floor....... and of mom and dad scooping up the broken bits and throwing them on my Grandmother's platter and mom crying because the clean floor was a greasy mess.

of the cats stealing my little people from my Christmas village and hiding them around the house....

of tearful reunions.......

but mostly memories of laughter and love .. love that came down at Christmas time.

Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.
- Augusta E. Rundel