JOY TO THE WORLD!!!

I'm back!!! Mal's play is finished. She did fantastic. I have to say, in spite of being her mom, she is a great character actress! And even though I still have a week of craziness ahead of me to prepare for our women's retreat, I plan resume blogging.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I always enjoyed Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, in the last 10 years or so, it seems that society sees Thanksgiving as a necessary interruption in the Christmas shopping season, a day to rest up and plan before Black Friday. If you know me at all, you know that I am an admitted Christmas-aholic. Even if I begin shopping before Thanksgiving, (which I haven't had time to do the last couple of years,) even if there's a nice weather day and we hang the lights on the house before Thanksgiving, Christmas does not begin for me until after Santa has ridden into Herald Square, NYC, in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and the turkey leftovers are in the fridge! The lights don't get plugged in, the Christmas music doesn't get turned on, and the Santas don't come out of the boxes until the day after Thanksgiving. (I was going to write that the Santa's don't come out of the closet, but that would start another whole Santa controversy! And if you don't know about the 150 Santas in my closet, you will soon!)

So...you may have guessed it already, for at least the next 28 days this blog will be about what I find joyful about the Christmas season!

A little background...I am 3rd generation Christmas-aholic. My Nanny (my dad's mother) prepared for Christmas from Dec. 26th on...I am not kidding. My Nanny was the original crafter. As the parents of FIVE sons (take that Andrea Olley!) they had a house with 3 finished floors (including the basement) and an almost finished attic. As the sons moved out, the craft supplies moved in. When she passed away, it tooks weeks to clean out the house. I learned what a "gross" was from my Nanny...12 dozen of something...ususally artificial flowers (plastic...it was before "silk" flowers!) We were making homemade Christmas tree decorations in the 1960's...elaborate beaded balls...I had sore fingers for weeks from pushing straight pins into foam balls. She made centerpieces, wreaths, ceramic trees and figurines and candy dishes, crocheted Christmas doilies,...you name it! She and my Pop-Pop knew every wholesaler from New York City to Englishtown, NJ.

My Dad also loves Christmas. He says it's for kids. Really all he means by that is that kids get the biggest share of the presents. He loves Christmas, the music, the lights, the shopping, the food, having family around. He too decorates no matter what. My father and step mother travel between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year since they were married 27 years ago. He's had major surgeries right before or after Christmas. But no matter what the decorations go up, and they go down. He loves to shop for toys, and even though he has a hard time walking long distances, he will track down what he wants. He's even said more than once he would give us all the money to shop for our kids for him, but he never does. My Dad has a cathedral ceiling in his living room, so there's almost always a big Christmas tree. He's gone out an bought at least one, if not two, table top trees, only to go back to the 9 or 10 footer!

And then there's me...I can't tell you why my Nanny loved then, or my Dad loves now, Christmas the way they do. I never thought to ask. But in the next few weeks, I'm going to tell you why I love this time of year, why it brings me so much joy, and what some of my best memories are. You may have no interest in any of this...so if you don't want to read, I'm not insulted. I'm going to get joy just from writing!