I am pretty sure that I can tell you where I get my obsesssion with Christmas from. Are you ready? Drumroll please........... My Mom! I have a Mother that loves Christmas with a passion, and I would not have it any other way. My Christmas's growing up were always magical. I loved it. She has at least enough Christmas decorations to decorate a neighborhood of houses. I must say up front though, that we were never the family with the tacky lawn decorations and enough christmas lights to distract aircraft. No, we were a classy Christmas family. My mother was always so meticulous about having themed Christmas trees. We had a peach and pink angel tree in the 80's and a red and gold in the nineties and then the new millenium ushered in the silver and blue period. I can literally look through old pictures and tell you about when it was taken just based on the color of the tree in the background! How many people can say that? The only time I had a problem with this was when I was 6. I wanted a tree with rainbow lights and different color decorations sooooo bad. So my mother had my father use the rainbow christmas lights on a wall in the shape of a tree so that I could pin my favorite decorations to the wall and have my own tree in all the colors of the rainbow. I loved it.
The other thing I think of when I think of Christmas and my Mom, is all of the time I have spent in Christmas stores through out my life. I think I have lived at least a year of my life in Christmas stores. I can catalog the location of every family vacation in my mind and remember the Christmas store that we visited while we were there. I could not believe that some of these places had Christmas stores. Let me list a few : Disney World (my mother's favorite place), Helen, Jekyll Island, Gatlinburg, and St. Augustine. These are just a few that I remember vividly. I did not know that islands as small as St. Augustine would have entire stores dedicated to Christmas, but leave it to my mother to find it.lol. It was hilarious.
My mom didn't just shop Christmas, she hand made Christmas. There are so many things that my Mom is great at. She is an excellent crafter, and sewer. She made wreaths, and ornaments, garlands and bows, and our stockings. My mother still did stockings up until the first year I was married, and I love her for it. It is so much fun and I want to do that for my kids too.
One thing that sticks out about Christmas is the cresche. We had a nativity scene that I loved. We would put it up every year, and it was probably my favorite decoration. My dad would put up the stable after Thanksgiving every year, and then every day from December 1 to the 25th I would find characters and animals under my pillow when I woke up, and I would run to the living room and arrange them in the stable. I loved it. When I got married a few years ago my husband and I started looking for our own cresche, and I never found anything that was quite right. None of them had sentimental value. So last year my mother and father wrapped all of the pieces of the Cresche and gave them to us. I love it so much. It is one of the best gifts I have ever received. I get teary thinking about it. This year will be it's first real year of display at our place. I love it.
Now, I know that Christmas is about more than the decorations and presents. My family celebrated with many other ways too. We had secret santa, cookie bandits, scripture readings, and more. We were very well rounded.
Hopefully I can take all of the excitement and love I have for Christmas and bless my family with it someday.Maybe it will even rub off on my kids and they will celebrate the same ways with their families. The legacy of love started by my Mom.
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