It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

Christmas always has and always will be my most favorite holiday.  As a child I was the one on my mother's case, "can we decorate for Christmas now?"  When the answer was yes I would dive into the boxes of trinkets and ornaments cheerfully chirping Christmas songs as I transformed our home into a Christmas wonderland.  My freshman year of college one of my roommates had to BAN me from Christmas music until AT LEAST after Thanksgiving.

Though my vigor for the holiday has never diminished somewhere along the line Christmas joy turned to Christmas hum drum.  The snow falls, trees are lit, carols are sung and the birth of Christ is celebrated the same way year after year.  Yet somewhere in my heart was missing something......the magic.

I began to fear that the loss of youth meant the loss of Christmas joy.  Until I found a very real and unexpected cure for the "bah humbug" creeping up within me..... a baby!  The very second Thanksgiving was over I was on Christmas hyper drive, every lullaby I sang was Christmasy.  I decorated our home and had little talks with Kylea about another special little baby born around this time of year named Jesus.  Kevin had to reign me back on a few things like cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.  "She has no idea that you're even doing that" he kept reasoning.   I found reason has little to do with the unimaginable joy I found in creating holiday magic for our little family this year. Sure, she's too young to appreciate most of what I did, but now the precedent for tradition has been set.  We've established a hybridization of our traditions to create our own holiday tradition that I think will be perfect for us.

We visited Santa on Christmas Eve day.

Kylea LOVED Santa she smiled a laughed all the way home.

such a sweet little face.....how could Santa deny this little angel?

Made a homemade pizza and watched "A Christmas Story" later that night.

Christmas morning started bright and early for us, the only one not bleary eyed was little Kylea.  I suspect it will be this way for many Christmases to come.

At least right at first.  Most of the day she spent recuperating from her early morning.

We all agreed that before presents we would feed our growling stomachs.  So Kevin set to work making tea roll (a delicious Hart family tradition).

Santa brought us LOTS of toys and presents as well as some exotic fruit from his previous destination (a tradition from my family)

a bumbo so Kylea can sit up all by herself!

Santa brings good doggies a treat

Tekoa says I LOVE Christmas!!!!!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and playing with presents.

GO DUCKS!

Christmas magic has been restored and I can't WAIT for next year!!!