I'm a December baby, one of those embittered souls whose childhood consisted of birthday/Christmas combos and leftover Christmas wrapping paper (because that was all they had, you see). Luckily, thanks to my awesome parents and my own general ability to ignore stupid people, I LOVE Christmas. Or you know, whatever you call this "Holiday Season". To me, it's Christmas, with Douglas Fir trees, homemade gingerbread cookies with buttery frosting (yes, I make them myself!) and crammed stockings.
My favorite part of Christmas, however, is what my family did every year as I was growing up —pile into the family van (there were 8 kids, so yes, it was a VAN) to drive around and look at the Christmas lights. I don't know how it got started, I was probably too young to remember, but I do know that as we drove around the city, oohing and ahhing over the fairy colors and pulsing brightness, I wished it would last all night. Starting at the top, with my Dad, each of us would pick a favorite Christmas Carol to sing as we went along. It was sort of a game to see how long we could keep going until we couldn't think of any more.
My Dad invariably picked "Joy to the World", my mom "O Little Town of Bethlehem" or "Silent Night". My favorite song, hands down, was and always will be "The Twelve Days of Christmas". What isn't there to like? The song has everything, plus when you get towards the end you can sing it faster and faster until the words spill out of your mouth till you can hardly pronounce the words.
I hope to share that Christmas Tradition with my own boys, someday. Here's hoping you find your own to share!
Be sure to read all the entries for the Twelve Days of Christmas blog event! Use the link on the top of my blog.
Happy Reading!
8 comments:
Great post! I just love Christmas, too! I'm building the page in preparation for the kick-off of 12 Days. Wanted to let you know in case you tried to click a link that goes to no-man's land!
10 December, it will go live again!
Thanks so much for participating, Kate. And Happy Christmas!
Oh, going out looking at Christmas lights was great! I haven't done that in years except for the one time a couple of years ago when there was a house that had their lights synchronized to music. EVERYONE went to see that house. You tuned into a certain radio station and watched the lights pulsing in time to the music.
I can see why you remember this time as happy. It was. Your parents filled it with memories of fun, songs, and a laughter-filled family outing. I'm willing to bet this has helped create a continuing close family.
And thank you for reminding me of my families sightseeing trips to look at all the beautiful lights.
That is So AWESOME!! We did the SAME THING growing up!! And I still do it with my kids! We always went out with all the aunts uncles and cousins to look at the lights in a long line of cars lol. Now with my family, we go out to eat and to a movie and drive around to look at the lights after the movie is over on Christmas Eve. When we get home Santa has come (The same happened when I was a little girl) and we open presents before bed, whenever that time my finally roll around. So excited to see that someone else has the same cherrished Christmas memory that I have!
Hope you have a Very Blessed Christmas!!
Big treat going up to the West End (London) to see the lights and visit Father Christmas and Uncle Holly in Selfridgres, Oxford Street (santas were not very common then - only really in the large stores - so pretty and I was very fond of pretty - finding the post war gloom . . .well gloomy:)
That's a wonderful tradition, and your description brought be back to my own childhood, although it was a station wagon, not a van. :)
Although not as grand, we used to drive around the neighborhood to see the lights. It's nice to be able to carry on traditions with your own family...
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