One Day Until Christmas

Well, folks this is the day. The last day before the big day, that is unless your family has their celebrations on this day. In that case you had better have your act together and have all of that shopping done. When my kids were young we always had the family over to our home on Christmas Eve and that is when all the presents were opened after all the eating. The tree had so many presents under it that it spread throughout half the livingroom. The presents were handed out to each person whose name was on them and the idea was for the kids to open theirs first. We tried to get them to wait so we could all see what everyone got but it didn't seem to work out that way. After a few minutes of organized unwrapping something would go terribly wrong and a whirlwind of ribbons, and paper was flying in the air. There were squeals of excitement and thank you's abounding and nobody knew what anybody else got because we were opening gifts at the same time. When the dust settled we had big black trash bags to stuff the discarded paper in and hopefully you weren't throwing away some little pieces of gifts. We would keep the bags in the garage so we could go through them later if need be. Ah, yes those were the days. The days of having children at Christmas time. As they grew older some of the magic of Christmas was gone forever. It just wasn't as fun without children there to be bouncing around with glee. But when the kids grew up I started to focus on the reason for the season. Now I truly enjoy the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve. It's a much quieter evening to be sure, but comforting too. Hubby and I have already exchanged our gifts this year. I got a new digital camera and he got a new digital camcorder. We will be having lots of fun with our new toys. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.