The Season's Greeting

I must admit that the Christmas season is one of my favorite times of year. I love all of the lights, the music, the cinnamon apple candles burning. It's just so.....oh you know.....Christmasey. It just puts a smile on my face to hear Linus recite his Christmas story for the 100th time. Or to laugh over and over as Ralphy gets told "You'll shoot your eye out!" No matter how many times I play my "Holiday Classics" CD, I never tire of the melodies. Ahhh....there is just something about it all.

The day after Thanksgiving is the day we decorate the house. Or should I say "I" decorate the house. My husband drags his big ol' ladder in and struggles to get it placed just right under the attic door. We have one of those funky ceiling doors that you tug on a rope and the door drops open, and behold......boxes and boxes and boxes.....did I tell you there were BOXES? I must say, I have been collecting Christmas decoration from around the world for years now. Well, maybe not around the world exactly, but from Dollar stores that are out of my area at least. Snowmen too numerous to count. But all so cute that I can't part with any of them. Big ones, small ones, some that are on pillows, some of them on throw blankets. Towels, plates, coffee cups. It's like Frosty himself has brought his entire family to reside at my house for the duration of the winter.
The entire weekend is spent with Christmas music playing and me "ho-ho-ho-ing" merrily along.

I remember in California, the weather never really got very cold, so the first few winters here in Texas were a shock to me. As a matter of fact, the first real cold snap is still a shock to me. Last week I was contemplating crop pants, and this week I am looking to find the wool socks and warm jammies. The aroma of a big pot of chili cooking brings my guys to the table. After all, we have all worked hard to get the house looking wonderful. The outside lights are finished and the tree is ready for it's final addition of the candy canes. All is well in my holiday world.

That is until the dreaded winter clothing plastic tubs are placed within my sight. I am up to 4 of them now. Oh, trust me, it is not because I have so many cute holiday type sweaters. No, no, nooooo. It's because I have saved the different SIZES of those adorable, sparkly, I know-I-will- eventually-be-able-to-wear-this-again-sweaters !!!! It's like a sickness I tell you. I haven't been a size 4 since I don't know when, but this little voice in my head says "You never know.....wouldn't it just be a shame if you got rid of this oh so cute little sweater and next year you lost more weight than would be humanly possible to do and it mysteriously would have fit you"? Can I get an amen here????? I can't imagine that I am the only woman in the world who saves the improbable in hopes of accomplishing the near impossible. And then, to make myself feel even worse?????? I try them all on !!!! Oh the humility of it all. Why in the world I venture to think that a year in a plastic tub is going to somehow change the dimensions of those sweaters and pants is absolutely beyond me. But each year it's the same thing. Year after year after year. And then, exhausted, I lovingly fold them all up and place them gently back in their respective tubs to wait until the first chill the next year. Family traditions are so hard to break.