December - Count Down

December is count downtime  for the big day…December 25. December is the time for lots of preparations. It is the time for buying Christmas presents, wrapping the presents, and hiding the gifts from the prying eyes and fingers of not just the little ones, but anyone else who happens to be around.

December is the time to find the right day to cut down the Christmas tree, put one up, decorate  it, and decorate the inside and outside of the house. Add cleaning the house to that list, along with shopping for all the delicacies for the annual Christmas Eve Dinner and the Christmas Day Dinner.

There is the decision as to what cookies to make. Maybe it is the traditional cookies or trying out a new cookie recipe. Then there is finding the right date for the annual Christmas Cookie Exchange. If you’re dealing with a few participants, that can be easy. But if there are a lot of participants, finding the perfect day and time can be problematic.

Christmas can be a hassle or it can be more. Just targeting one day seems pretty silly, so I choose to make the whole month of December special, and that includes doing all the things I need to do. It also means doing something fun. I choose the Cookie Exchange because it is fun and it is a family function. I like to see the Festival of Lights in Oglebay with one of my children and their family. I like going to Market Square and seeing the Christmas kiosks with different ornaments, going to Phipps at night to tour and see the flowers, plants and spectacular decorations by candle light, and going downtown to see the Gingerbread Houses and the display of all the different Santa Clauses from around the world at the PPG Center.

I love Christmas Eve because my whole family comes over and there are a lot of us. I even have some family friends stop in and we eat all sorts of food, and open our presents. On Christmas Day, I go to church and then put more presents in my car and spend the day at my oldest son’s house with his wife and their 6 kids. This brings me back to my holidays when all my kids were little.

I don’t want Christmas to be just one day. I want it to be all of December and maybe all year round!