Christmas Magic

I am getting so excited for Christmas!  I am very appreciative to my parents who always made every holiday, but especially Christmas, such a special event.  I think they did a great job of keeping Christ at the center of Christmas but also letting it be a magical time of childhood.  For, second only to the greatest gift of God's son Jesus, is the gift of our own children.  One of my favorite traditions was hiding our manger scene baby Jesus until Christmas morning.  Which ever sister would wake up first would then go wake up the other 2 girls.  All three of us would race to our parents bedroom, careful not to peek down the hallway at the living room ahead, because seeing if Santa had come was something we all did together.  We would go into the living room as a family and marvel at the mound of presents under the tree that had not been there the night before.  Santa always used his own special wrapping paper and wonderfully simple packages.  No bows or ribbons, just our names on the paper in all capital letters.  The first thing we would do is get baby Jesus from his hiding spot and place him in his rightful spot in the manger scene.  We then got to open stockings and get ready for Mass.  Most years we went to church on Christmas morning, another tradition I love.  We won't have the time for that this year since we have a lot to do before we load up the car and head north to be with family.  But we are looking forward to dressing up for a special Mass on Christmas Eve. 

I absolutely love that no matter how old I got, Christmas was always just as magical.  Through out the years and even into adulthood, my parents would put Santa presents out when we were sleeping.  It didn't matter that we knew, it was just still so special.  We picked out trees together as a family well into our teenage years.  I look forward to making Christmas just as special for our kids.  I remember the joy it brought to my parents, they loved doing it and we never heard about all the stress and work it was (well, almost never:-)).  I definitely understand their excitement, as I have been counting down the days for weeks now!  All my shopping and most of my wrapping is done.  Katya helped me make our favorite chocolate peanut butter balls yesterday and we will do a bit more baking this week.  I could not resist buying a gingerbread house kit at the store which we will make with the kids on Friday.  Fun stuff! 

I hope everyone out there has a wonderful, peace filled, Christ filled  holiday!  Merry Christmas! Love, Brenda