The holidays...

I'm the youngest of the three kids in my family. As a child, like most kids, I looked forward to Christmas (especially since in my family no torturous church outings were required!) probably more than any other day of the year. I spend far too much time contemplating Santa and how he did what he did. (For the record, my conclusion was that, "There is no way that Santa isn't real because there is no way that all of the adults in the world would lie to children like that." Boy was I wrong!) As I've gotten older, there were younger cousins below me, but unfortunately we didn't spend nearly as much time with them as in many families. Since all the kids are grown up now, we've had many a Christmas that seemed to lack that magic, that spark that I remember as a kid.

Somehow the exercise of making a Christmas list when I'm 25 years old seems a little bit selfish. Yes, I can tell you I would like a list of knitting gear, some Gocco inks, some kitchen gadgets, but I surely don't need any of it. In fact, more often than not I struggle with not just buying the things on my list as soon as I put them there (I'm not a very patient person!). I sometimes feel like the whole process is a bigger bother to many people in my life (my brothers, dad and boyfriend included!). I love making and buying gifts for people in my family. I love trying to figure out the perfect thing, the perfect wrapping and the perfect card. (In fact, each year I have had a wrapping "scheme" of sorts, one year it was tulling with snowflakes drawing on in paint, last year it was brown paper and bright ribbon, this year blue paper with red crepe paper puffs on top!) Yet, despite all my efforts, the holidays seem to hit a little sad note.

I am fairly certain the difference is children! With no children in the house, it just seems silly to all sit around and exchange gifts. We are all adults, we can all buy the things we want/need, so why bother doing it for each other? But kids, they are a different animal all together. They get toys and things they can't just go get for themselves. It is a glorious day of happiness and surprise for them.... and to me it is the kids that make Christmas great. One of my favorite new Christmas traditions is getting toys and clothes for a child for the salvation army. They give you an age, sizes and their little wish list and you go get things for them and turn them back in. I love going and picking out items for the kids... even though I don't get to see their reactions. I'm sure their reaction to the hats and gloves is less excited, but I'm sure the toys always get a great reception :)

This will be the first year my family has a "child" around again. I only say "child" because my niece Anna is only 9 months old. Although I had a blast picking out her hippo shape sorting toy, I don't know why kind of a reaction I'll get, and she is surely too young to understand Santa yet. I can't wait until Anna (and any brother or sister she may have by then) is talking and gets all excited for Christmas. I think having a kid around at the holidays will make everything a little more magical and special. I also can't wait until I have kids and can do all the same, but that is quite a ways away for me! For now, I have had to settle on getting my "kids" dog and cat toys, and I'm pretty sure they aren't really going to appreciate the meaning. Not to mention I can't exactly put them under the tree since I'm too scared to have a tree right now with the way these two play. :)

Happy Holidays Everyone!