This Christmas

This Christmas will be a new experience for me. It will be Andrew and I's very first Christmas together. We have been talking a lot about what we will be doing this season and what traditions we celebrated with our families before that we would like to incorporate into our new Christmas traditions. I am quite demanding about a few things, like we must fall asleep before Santa comes, and that Christmas light drives have to occur for it to feel like the Christmas season. He had different traditions and different demands. He wants Christmas cookie smells and a white light Christmas tree. As a 22 year old you would think that maybe by now I would have grown up a bit and that Christmas would be less exciting. Pondering my inability to see that I should grow up and out of these Christmas traditions, I learned something. Christmas is a time for joy and families. Christmas is about the traditions we all establish. Without these important experiences we miss out on the meanings. The season is such a joyful one. We all get excited about the coming of Christmas. The anticipation. The wonderful things to come. I love Christmas because everyone seems so happy. Jesus is coming and we are all eagerly awaiting that joyful message. It is important that we establish traditions. We make it more real that way I think. Without the Christmas lights everything just feels like any other time. But this season is so unlike any other. More people are helping others, giving to others and feeling good about the coming year. We have hope because of the Christmas season. And the Christmas story has always been one of hope. So I encourage all of you to take some time and talk about what makes Christmas Christmas for you and to find that joy, hope and anticipation that we so easily forget at any other time of the year.