A Merry Jenny Christmas - Jenny O'Connell

I love, love, love the holiday season. My favorite day of the year is Christmas Eve because it's all about anticipation and warmth and you can track Santa on NORAD and get all excited as midnight approaches. I start listening to Christmas carols as soon as I can find the radio station that's playing them (this year it was the day after Halloween). We don't have many holiday traditions in our house, except to decorate the day after Thanksgiving and put the trees up, but this year we started a new one because, as you can tell, I just got married in September. So this weekend my husband and our kids sat down at the table with carols playing, the trees lit (we have four trees in our house) and we each decorated an ornament (just wooden ornaments like a penguin, a snowman, a mitten, a present and a Christmas ball). Then we hung them on one of the trees and decided it's something we will do every year from now on (my kids are 17 and 15 so getting them to sit with us for an hour was a treat). I can't wait to look back years from now at the absolutely horrific snowman my 15 year old son decorated (he has not an ounce of artistic skill) and the rainbow mitten my stepson colored. It will remind me of our first Christmas as a family, just like the ornaments on the biggest tree in our house reminds me of growing up (there are ornaments on that tree that my mother gave me when I was just a little girl).

In my house Christmas really is about a spirit instead of a day.  And while I'd like to think it's a spirit I could carry with me all year long, there's just something so wonderful and warm about the month of December, even if right now it's 20 degrees in Boston. It's a time to look back and remember, and just feel good about where we are today. And if it gives me permission to sing carols at the top of my lungs for one month a year, all the better.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday filled with joy and memories. See you next year!!