The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Yes, people, it's coming. The Holiday Season.

My most favorite and wonderful time of the year...Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc! Who can resist the delicious smells of winter pine, fresh baked christmas cookies, the potpourri of scents...

The beautiful twinkle lights decorating houses and buildings, the hustle and bustle of the season, the decorations, the traditions! Yum! I get all excited just thinking about it!

Since I was a little kid, I absolutely adored Christmas - not for the presents (don't get me wrong, Santa is THE MAN), but the sounds, sights, and smells of the season were the real draw. The anticipation of Christmas morning, and now that I'm a grown up - it seems to fly right on up and then it's over in a moment.

Why is it that the Holiday season lasted so much longer when we were in kids, enduring endless days of school until Winter Vacation crept up? We wrote list upon list and sent them to "Santa" and his Merry Elves, assured that we had been good enough to receive plenty of gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. We shuffled from our homes to visit our loved ones for the holiday, and the best part of the season: Getting the tree, bringing it home and taking out the treasured ornaments and decorations that had been carefully packed away the year before. Each ornament on our family tree at my Mom & Dad's home has special meaning, was created by little hands at some point in elementary school, or was a treasured heirloom. They are treated like the finest spun glass, and packed away again just as carefully at the end of the season for the next year.

Who doesn't love turning off the lights and watching the lights on the tree twinkle after working so hard to put everything together?

Yes, it's still early, this year. But Halloween always marks for me the beginning of the most fabulous season of the year...Christmas!

Thanks to Starbucks for putting me in the mood this morning when they handed me my Venti CHRISTMAS cup!! You know it's coming when Starbucks is handing out the red cups! lol.