Holiday Cheer

The image of "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" brings up distant memories of Christmases in Germany for me, and now the phrase "tiny tots with their eyes all aglow" has become even more real for me this Advent season. We pulled out all of the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. I was looking forward to getting them out, but it was mostly a practicality of knowing that if we didn't get things decorated on Thanksgiving break, we would be hard-pressed to find time again until Christmas Break.

It ended up being more fun than I ever anticipated because of the joy it brought to Karamea. At the mere mention of "Christmas decorations", she started repeating the phrase excitedly as I talked to my mom on the phone about our plans for the day. I didn't realize how much she had remembered from Christmas last year. She was almost 18 months old at the time, but since Christmas only comes around once a year, we hadn't talked about the festivities much since. She carefully hung decorations (and random toys) on the tree and squealed with delight when she saw the German Christmas star hung in the corner of the living room. She is bringing so much happiness to this Christmas season, which is good considering that my heart is still heavy grieving the loss of my dad. She loves listing to Christmas music on the radio, particularly "Jingle Bells" and walks around talking about Jesus' birthday. I have heard it said that Christmas is for children, and there is certainly some truth to that in seeing how much joy children bring to the season.