Christmas Day

It is a beautiful Christmas morning here in Georgia. The sun has come out and yet it is still chilly enough to have a fire going in the fireplace. I am sipping on my second coffee of the morning. The first coffee came with mom's delicious Swedish Tea Ring (think glorified cinnamon roll).

I am a very sentimental person so I thought I would share with you all some of the precious memories over the year that mean so much to me or cause me to smile.

Last night my Dad and I were laughing over something I did when I was younger. Since we were able, all of us girls and Dad have slept "under the Christmas tree" a.k.a. the living room on Christmas Eve (Heidi, Dad and I still are sleeping there!). One Christmas Eve, I contemplated the "under the Christmas tree" idea and thought for sure that phrase had to come from a time when people actually slept under the tree. So I pulled my pillow and sleeping bag under the tree and crawled, literally, under the tree. After about 5 minutes, I joined everyone sleeping by the fireplace instead. The needles of the tree kept getting in my face and I did not have room to move because the tree was so low to the ground. It was definitely a "Heather moment".

Another memory that I haven't appreciated until I have been older, is my Dad's tradition of listening to the complete Handle's "Messiah" every Christmas day. The music starts with the prophecies of Christ's first coming and ends with His second coming, using nothing but Scripture to tell the story. Now that I am older, I see how much more meaning Christmas and Christ's birth have when you can see the bigger picture.

My sister Anna and I were reminiscing this morning about being younger and picking some of our toys that we got for Christmas (we celebrate on Christmas Eve) to set next to us as we were falling asleep "under the tree". That way we could look at them and have them ready to play with as soon as we woke up on Christmas morning.

Speaking of waking up, there were many times we would wake up before "Santa" (Dad) filled out stockings. So, we would pretend we were sleeping until Dad filled the stockings and then crawl back in his sleeping bag to pretend HE was sleeping. Then we would wait a few minutes just so we didn't look too eager before we got up and opened up our stockings.

I love remembering those sweet moments.