I adore Christmas. It is, by far, my favorite holiday, and it is definitely the most wonderful time of the year! I remember going through a phase when I was younger (probably 12 or 13) when I felt really depressed by Christmas. It had really lost that “magic” it had had when I was younger. I’m sure I didn’t fully enjoy Christmas for a few years there, and I’m pretty sure I thought Christmas would always be a let-down.

Not true! Why? Because my mother is amazing. You know when people say, “I have the best mom in the world.”? No, sorry, you don’t. I know you all think I’m exaggerating, but I have the best mom in the world. You would understand if you met her. 🙂 And I will argue with you on this point to my grave. And no, of course I’m not biased: I have 3 sisters to back me up.

Anyways, I’m getting off track here. How dd my mom save Christmas for me? By changing our names. I don’t even remember when she started this. Probably when I was in middle or high school. It was her way of guaranteeing that we didn’t know what we were getting. We could shake the boxes, eye up the size and shape of those presents, but it didn’t matter much if your name wasn’t on it. So whose names were on these gifts? It changed every year. One year she used Disney princesses. One year we were animals. Another year we were gemstones. We were 4 of the Seven Dwarfs one year. She has used so many different themes, I probably don’t remember them all!

She began putting a clue in our stockings so we would know who we were Christmas morning. Don’t worry, we know the rest of the gifts were from Santa; just that clue was from Mom. 🙂 This small extra thing that my mom did made Christmas a little more exciting for me. I was up at 5:30 to go open that stocking. No, this didn’t stop at age 16 or 21 or 25. In fact, this was the first year in a long time that I wasn’t up before the sun on Christmas Day! I think that as I got older, I continued to get up super early just to keep up the excitement. You can ask my sisters and Andrew, but how can you not be excited when Nicole comes running into your room to whisper, “It’s Christmas!! Let’s open stockings!!” 🙂 The hardest thing I see in my future, pertaining to this, is continuing the tradition for my own kids and waiting for them to come excitedly wake me up. I know I will have to fake being asleep, because to this day, I cannot sleep on Christmas Eve. I knew it wouldn’t be the same this year, but I was still so excited. I made sure Andrew and I bought each other secret stocking gifts, so it was almost as exciting as usual.

Oh, I love Christmas music. I put it on immediately after Thanksgiving, and I will be singing carols all the time. How can you not hum “O Come All Ye Faithful” when you’re making dinner after hearing it 3 times earlier that day?! And I love decorating the house. I love putting up the Christmas tree. I love watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” But my favorite part of the holiday is definitely the tradition my mom started. She saved Christmas for me when I was a teenager, and she inspired me to keep the holiday exciting no matter how old I get.