Christmas - Light

I love the holidays. The time leading up to Christmas is almost better than the day itself. I love listening to Christmas music non-stop, wearing my Ho-Ho-Ho fleece pajama pants much more than is appropriate, watching Home Alone, Charlie Brown's Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street. I love decorating the Christmas tree, baking cookies, and putting up the stockings. I love dressing up on Christmas eve and going to Midnight Mass (that's the Catholic in me). I love shopping for presents and wrapping them, mailing out Christmas cards and distributing a little homemade treat to the neighbors. And I love that feeling of unbridled excitement when I try to fall asleep on Christmas eve and how I still wake up completely happy every Christmas morning.
Maybe I like all of this anticipation more than the actual day because the actual day was different every year for me growing up ... some years we celebrated at home, some years we traveled to my Grandma's house in Iowa, some years we took a vacation. PJO is one of those people whose family has done the exact same thing his whole life and he loves it. His extended family always comes to his house for a HUGE dinner. Presents are opened in the morning, but right after that's over, everyone cleans and cooks to prepare for the 25-35 guests. In his family, it's all about the actual day... more specifically, the dinner.

This year, Christmas will be different for both of us. PJO won't be at home for the first time in his life, and something about the fact that I'm 9 months pregnant is killing my drive to fully indulge in the holiday spirit. Our little apartment has been decorated, but it's like we're playing house because nothing really fits. We shoved our kitchen table against the wall to make room for our tree to be squeezed between the couch and china cabinet. We don't have a fireplace, so our stockings are hanging from the console table.








Because I ran out of stuff to do on my to-do list, I decided to make Christmas cookies yesterday... I might have gone a little overboard.



But I had to make something to put on the plate PJO and I made at Color Me Mine last year:



I have to say, all of this preparation and anticipation for Christmas isn't quite the same this year. Maybe it's because I'm actually waiting for something more exciting than Christmas. Maybe it's because I know we won't actually be doing anything too exciting on Christmas day itself. (I mean, really, what do you plan for the day before your due date?! Both traveling to family and hosting family sound kind of terrible) I wanted our first Christmas together on our own to be romantic and special, but Christmas is definitely taking a backseat this year.

I know at least two members of my family who are happy about that: