AFOMFT: Christmas

Being away from home, I have realized how much I value the Christmas traditions and memories I have with my family that are centered around this special season. I love Christmas. I am the kid who believed in Santa Clause until I was 10 years old. I probably would have continued to believe in him until my kids went present-less on Christmas Day because I was expecting Santa to come down through the chimney and make the gifts appear. I'm thankful that my Mom thought I was old enough to know that there was no Santa and made the mistake of saying, "Now that you know it's me and your Dad buying your Christmas gifts, I want your help picking out some clothes..." WHAT!? If Mom and Dad are buying Christmas gifts.... where does that leave Santa?! I'm pretty sure I cried. As a fifth-grader. And it's not like I was completely sheltered growing up... I had friends, cousins, and neighbors telling me that Santa Clause didn't exist. I just didn't believe them. Poor Mom... she thought Dad was going to kill her for taking away the magic of Santa Clause. However, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for spilling the beans. Middle school is an awkward phase of life anyways... I can only bet that being a middle schooler who believed in Santa would have been a hundred times worse.

But even without Santa, Christmas is still my favorite time of the year. This will be my first Christmas with just my parents (Nicole will be spending the day with her in-laws in New York and Deirdre will be in Ireland), and I have already talked Nicole into letting me call her at 6:30 am on Christmas morning while I open my stocking. Since we were itty bitty, we have been spending the night in the same room on Christmas Eve and falling asleep to Christmas movies together, anxiously looking forward to one of us waking up at the crack of dawn (if not earlier) and stumbling her way into the hallway, hoping to trip over three stockings left by "Santa". I could continue on about our tradition in how we go about opening up the matching gifts in our stockings, but I feel like I'm sharing secrets of our sisterhood - ha, ha.

A few other Christmas traditions that I can always count on include....

Lilly wearing some sort of ridiculous Christmas gear... and loving it.

Mom and Nicole insisting that we try on ALL of our new clothes and wearing new outfits Christmas Day, the day after, and so on....

Snow on the ground (well, I can't count on a White Christmas... but I can hope for it)

A beautiful Christmas Tree, complete with our favorite ornaments...


Christmas Day Open House at the Johnsons... complete with Lauer grind trains, an amazing buffet of food, pony kegs, Mr. Johnson's famous soup, and lots of laughs...

And so many more... I can't wait to be home!