Most wonderful time of the year!

The holiday season is here!  This is my favorite time of the year.  People are nicer, the world just seems so much happier... And it's also my birthday!

It all starts with Thanksgiving.  I love Thanksgiving, because of the food, the Macy's parade, getting together with family & friends, and the fact that it starts off the holiday season!

Inbeween Thanksgiving & Christmas is my birthday!  Birthdays have always been special to me, doesn't matter if it is mine, or yours or his... It is a special day.  Sure other people share it with you, but it is a day all about you.  A time for family & friends to get together, share a good meal and some cake! Who doesn't like cake?!?

Then comes Christmas.  From the smells to the decorations to the food and giving, I love it all.  It isn't about the presents I receive any more...  But watching my children's faces as they help decorate, bake cookies, see the tree all lit up...  So many traditions.  Again, I love Christmas dinner for many of the same reasons I love Thanksgiving dinner!  

When my grandmother was alive, she would host Christmas Eve.  We always had ham with all the fixings.  We weren't allowed to go into the living room, where the Christmas tree, because we weren't allowed to see the"empty boxes".  Yes, the adults in my family convinced us that the boxes were empty until Santa came to fill them much later that night.  So we would drive home, my sister & I counting Christmas lights on houses and singing songs. We'd go to bed.

The next morning we would wake up early, of course!  And we weren't allowed to wake up our parents until 7 am.  But we would go downstairs and check out all the presents.  Santa always left us one present that wasn't wrapped, so we would often look at it, or play with it.  We were also allowed to look in our stockings.  

After opening presents and eating some breakfast at our house, we would load up our car.  We always started at my Grandmother's house.  We'd open more presents with our cousins, eat brunch, which always had ham salad.  My grandmother would make it from the left over ham from Christmas Eve.  We would then head to what felt like a million other houses, and end our day at my Grandma's house.  

It was always a long, but wonderful day, because we spent it all with our family.

Things of course have changed throughout the years, but essentially everything was the same.  Now, I get to share a lot of these traditions with my children and my mother-in-law.

What's your favorite holiday memory?