Holiday Spirit

I have this thing for Christmas, meaning: I absolutely love it. All year long I think of cute decorating ideas for my dorm and dream of ways that I can help bring the holiday spirit to my friends and I, whether it be through cookie baking, looking at Christmas lights, or going out for hot chocolate. Currently, all of my dorm decorations are tucked away in an Adidas shoe box that is perched on top of my wardrobe and my roommate has already called me a "Christmas freak," or something like that. I was too busy cutting Christmas pictures out of a Pottery Barn catalouge to pay much attention to what she was saying.

There are two reasons I love Christmas. One, the birth of my Soverign Lord, Jesus Christ, is celebrated during this season. Do you realize what the birth of Jesus means? It means that God loved us so much, that he sent his son as a sacrifice so that we could be forgiven of our sins. I, E., am forgiven of all of my sins. That is a lot. Just ask my mom- she even has a few of those sins on home video. Not only that, but God forgave you of all of your sins. And the sins of your parents, and your boss, and the woman who made your Starbucks this morning, and the Prime Minister of France. I hope you get the idea.

Secondly, Christmas has always been a joyful time in my household. My mom is the queen of Christmas decorations. Everything that we have hanging on our walls throughout the year comes down, and some sort of Christmas decoration takes its place for the next month. It is glorious. I went through this stage in my life when I thought the decor was so tacky and our house should look more like a Martha Stewart magazine. I quickly got over that (especially when Martha went to jail...that jaded my view of the domestic goddess), and in 20 years, my children will probably be saying the same thing to me. My mom also made sure that we felt special at Christmas. She bought us the advent calendars, made us hot chocolate with sprinkles on the whip cream, and had a magical set up when we stumbled down the hallway Christmas morning. It did not matter how much (or how little) our family had to spend, we would always be so thankful for what "Santa" had brought. I don't mean to leave my dad out of this; we could always rely on him to bring the tree in from the top of the car and have it sparkling with Christmas lights the next morning when we woke up. My parents love us, and they love Jesus, and so we just all love Christmas too; it works out rather nicely.

Now, I know its only the beginning of November and I do not mean to overshadow Thanksgiving and that whole "being thankful" thing, but I am also thankful at Christmas, so I think that perhaps the Christmas season should just begin in November and we can celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving together throughout the entire month of November AND December. Sort of killing two birds with one stone, right? Just consider it.