Building Christmas

“Big boy fireplace.  :)  Crackling fire, hot chocolate, and Christmas music…”  That was Chris’s caption along with the image he texted above.

“Oh no!  I’m going to miss that fireplace channel.”  That was my mom’s response to the picture.  It’s a Christmas tradition at our house to have the “fireplace channel” on in the background as we wrap Christmas presents.  While we have a beautiful wood burning stove that Chris refinished, we haven’t lit it as much as we would have liked because the kiddos have notoriously been impulsive, and it just seemed like a liability.

“Nope… We will have that playing in the Noni Guest suite…”  Chris replied to my mom.  So, the tradition will live on in the new house!  

I know it’s too early to talk to most people about Christmas (it’s not even officially fall yet!), but I can’t help it.  I love the holidays.  It has nothing to do with gifts.  In fact, I am terrible at picking out gifts for people.  No, really, I am.  Just ask my sister, who unwrapped hermit crabs from me one year.  She lives in Iowa, so needless to say they had a short, cold life.  Or the year I bought Chris protein powder from GNC.  (Hey, he had mentioned that he wanted to start working out again!  I thought I was jump-starting his motivation.)  When my mom and sister saw what I had picked out for him, they promptly sent me to the mall so that my sister could help me pick out something better.  “Something he would actually like,” they said.  It was Christmas Eve, and the mall wasn’t crowded.  My sister and I got a little slap-happy, and the guy in Sunglass Hut watched us for a while, then said, “I like ya’ll’s relationship.”  Of course that made us laugh even harder!  All this to say, my love of the holidays really has nothing to do with gifts, and everything to do with the joy and hope that comes along with the season.  It’s difficult for me to read the Nativity story to my children without crying.  Or to sing “When Christmas Comes to Town” from Polar Express, like I did in the car this morning (my voice totally cracked at the line, “All the dreams of children, what’s lost will all be found”).  To me, it’s the start of everything that is good on this Earth.  It’s where it all began.  That’s not to discount all the events leading up to the birth of Christ, because I know that they carry their own importance, and all events tie into each other.  But the birth of Christ was the arrival of the One True Love on Earth.

Anyway, I’m thankful for the little texts like the ones Chris just sent.  Others might quickly dismiss them, annoyed, flipping back to Instagram or Facebook.  Not me (or apparently my mom!).  They fill me with joy and hope in anticipation of all things to come.  Sometimes just having a text with a hint of these two things that can change the trajectory of my day. 

So, for anyone who is offended that I’ve discussed Christmas in September, I’m not sorry.  I’M NOT SORRY!  Not even remotely.  And I’m not offended that you are offended.  J And if I call you Scrooge or Grinch, consider it a compliment, because there was hope for them, and eventually their cold hearts changed. 

Ho ho ho!