Friday, December 15, 2006

Merry Christmas!!
Christmas is definitely my favorite time of year. I love Christmas music, Christmas cookies, Christmas presents, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating...just anything that has to do with Christmas. More importantly, I love the fact that it's a time to celebrate the birth of Christ - my Savior! I find that it's so easy for me to get caught up in all the things that I mentioned and lose sight of what the season really means. Christ humbling Himself, becoming a man, giving up the glories of heavan, dying for my sins - doing all this and more so that a sinner like me can be saved. I'm so thankful for Christ! I can't imagine celebrating Christmas with out having Him as my Savior.
TJ and I believe family traditions help to make times more memorable. We have several Christmas traditions that we've establised, so far. Each year we exchange ornaments. My ornament came from Disney world, when we where there this past February. T.J.'s new ornament does not have any particular meaning. I just thought it was cute. On Christmas Eve, we eat what we call a "fun meal." This tradition was in his family before I was. It includes various finger foods, snacky stuff, or fruits/veggies. Then we watch a Christmas movie. (This year, my new favorite Christmas movie is Elf- so hopefully we'll be watching that with everyone). After the Christmas movie, we read the Christmas story from the Bible and open one present before we go to bed. We sleep in Christmas morning. When we get up, we usually open presents before we do anything else. We're too excited to wait until after breakfast ( I know we're like a couple of big kids). Of course, we only open one present at a time so we can ohh and ahh over everything that's opened. After presents are opened and the mess is cleaned up, we make brunch. Then the rest of the day we relax, enjoy our presents, and eventually make Christmas dinner.
TJ and I are eagerly awaiting our family coming for Christmas. TJ's parents, sisters and brother-in-law will all be here to celebrate with us. I know we will have a great time. We will post pics of them after Christmas. We hope you all have a great Christmas season!