It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

With my significant lack of energy these days, it's been harder than normal to enjoy this most magical time of year. We are planning to spend Christmas in Seattle with our sisters and their sigs (significant others).  It works out wonderfully for us that they both live in Seattle, and only three miles away from each other to boot!  

Since we'll be out of town this year, I have more or less "skimped" on the holiday cheer.  Of course, I'm still me, and I absolutely refuse to get through December without the sparkle and smell of a live Christmas tree.  We decided to get a small tree this year, mainly because we have now rearranged our living room so Tom could actually work at his desk, and we have even less space than we did before.  It's cramped, but I love having a Christmas tree in the house.  I've often wished that I could "legally" keep my Christmas trees for longer than a month, but after the needles start dropping faster than a sack of turkeys dropped out of an airplane, I usually change my mind.

We have been really busy this month, and I haven't had a chance to keep up on my baking (and blogging).  To make up for it, I spent today in the kitchen today baking holiday treats. I usually give baked goods as holiday gifts for my coworkers and friends and by the end of the day, I had baked 74 cookies and 4 1/2 lbs of peanut brittle! Among the goods are some very delicious Butterscotch Gingerbread Cookies, Gingerbread Biscotti and, my favorite,  Peanut Brittle. I enjoyed spending the day in the kitchen, listening to Christmas music and feeling cozy. Nothing feels more like Christmas than the smell of Christmas cookies baking in the oven while the smooth voice of Bing Crosby fills the air.

Butterscotch Gingerbread Cookies

Since I have been relegated to walking these days, Tom and I have been religiously taking an evening walk together after work.  Willow Glen has a neighborhood tradition at Christmas in which every house lights a small Christmas tree in the middle of their front lawn.  Almost all the houses in Willow Glen do this, and it's a very pretty sight indeed.  I'm not sure where or why this tradition started, but people from all over the bay area flock to Willow Glen at Christmas time to see the Christmas lights.  Of course people add additional lights to their houses, and they are usually grand spectacles.  One house religiously erects a giant reindeer and sleigh that covers the span of three lawns.  Sometimes the Abdominal Snowman even shows up (which is laughable in CA).

We have enjoyed our nightly walks among the Christmas lights.  It makes this time in our lives feel that much more magical.  It's fun and surreal to think that when next Christmas rolls around, we'll have a 5 month old! I am looking forward to Christmases with little ones in the house again.  There has been a long span in my family where the youngest generation have been adults themselves and Christmas just doesn't hold the same joy and excitement as it does for a child.  I have been thinking back to the Christmas traditions that I enjoyed as a child and I'm excited to continue the traditions with my own children.  My favorites have been:

• Getting new pajamas on Christmas eve, and then wearing them to bed so we can look good for Santa.
• Pizza for Christmas eve dinner (after we attended Mass of course).
• My grandmother used to always get us a new ornament and attach it to our gift from grandparents that year.  I still have many of these ornaments and I absolutely love them.
• Leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer along with our Christmas lists (Santa used to always write back).
• Stockings were epic in my family.  They were usually stuffed so full that they had to overflow into shopping bags!
• After the Christmas morning carnage has completed, eating breakfast and sitting around in our pjs enjoying our gifts and family time.

I am sure as time continues, we will think of new family traditions to add to this list.   Our families are growing and I'm sure as time continues, inevitably things will need to change.  We have always enjoyed Christmases at Ronnie Way, and although I know that this cannot continue on forever, I hope it  does for as long as possible.  So many of my happiest memories have happened among the walls of my grandparents house and I hope, and I'm sure, that my own kids will feel the same way about their own grandparents.