Sweet

An award! Given to me by sweet Karen, the only blog friend who I have actually met in real life! Thanks Karen!

I feel a little sheepish receiving this award and meme as my last several posts have been anything but full of Christmas spirit as I have whined my way through a very unusual snowy week! But the meme that goes along with this award is bound to rekindle my Christmas Spirit and help me refocus in spite of the white stuff on the ground that has me housebound!

5 things I love about Christmas

1. Christmas music! I started listening to a few select cd's the day after Halloween this year! The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is just NOT enough time to enjoy all the beautiful music. I love to listen to music from my childhood: Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, and The Ray Connif Singers. My sweet husband is so good and patient even though that last group makes him cringe! Thank you honey!

2. Cookies! Especially my peppermint thumbprint cookies--which I have not made yet and hope to get around to today. I also like fudge, peppermint bark, russian tea cakes, and spritz.

3. The site of brightly wrapped packages under the tree! I don't neccesarily like the wrapping part--although we try to make it fun. Kerry helps me--he does the paper and I do the ribbons and bows. We put in a movie and just have a good time together. This year I thought I would try to simplify things and just stick a bow on each gift, but I couldn't bring myself to do that--we must have ribbons--lots of ribbons!

4. Singing Christmas hymns at church! Sadly, we have missed church the past two weeks due to weather and I have missed out on this joy. We did get to sing along with several carols when we attended our choir's Nine Lessons and Carols program a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful service, made more special because my boys are now singing in youth choir which joined our adult choir for that presentation.

Last, but most importantly:

5. The baby Jesus! What a wonderful gift our Heavenly Father sent to Earth. And what an amaizng event. Without that baby's birth there would no reason to celebrate.

May the saving grace of that baby be yours this Christmas season and all year through.

I am sure most of the bloggers I visit have already received this so I am only tagging Julie! She has had a rough month, but her blog has had some beautiful Advent reflections and what better way to focus on Christmas than the coming of our Lord and Saviour.

If you haven't been tagged yet, then consider yourself tagged! Let me know if you do the meme so I can come and read your answers!

The rules:
The rules for this meme are very simple. Good manners dictate thanking (and linking to) the person who gave you the award. Then simply list five things you love about Christmas and pay the meme forward by tagging as many people as you'd like to. To keep the Christmas spirit flowing, be a good sport and tag at least one person.