Day 30: Christmas In July

About this time every year, I start thinking about the months to come. The best months of the year. The holiday months.

For us, the holiday months kick off in October with the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and Ben's birthday and go through New Year's Day. Holiday months are synonymous with pumpkin flavored coffee, pumpkin patches, football, warm socks, dusting off my pregnancy pants for Thanksgiving dinner (don't judge me), the smell of fires, the smell of snow, school holiday performances, the River of Lights, decorating, baking, laughing at tipsy relatives, telling stories about previous holidays...I could go on and on.

The kids at McCall's Pumpkin Patch, a true New Mexican treasure. If you're here, you know it's Fall.

Every holiday during the holiday months is great, but the hands-down winner for the best, most fun holiday is definitely Christmas. It is, as they say, the most wonderful time of the year. I absolutely love Christmas. I feel like it's the time of the year when we see the best in people and makes everyone feel a little bit like a kid again, if only temporarily.

This is what pure, unbridled Snow Day joy looks like. This is also what Mitten Monsters look like.

Christmas is, without a doubt, one of the best times of year to be a parent. When they were babies, both of my kids loved to lie under the Christmas tree and stare up at the lights. As they get older, they're able to participate in the fun more and more, helping to decorate the tree, baking cookies, and assembling gingerbread houses. They are enamored with Christmas, wrapped up in the magic, the celebration, and electric awareness of life and love that is Christmas. They remind me of what it feels like to be a carefree kid, anxiously waiting for Christmas day to finally come. They remind me of happy childhood memories, which is a surprisingly and amazing gift. Prior to my kids, I spent many years in retail and a side effect of that particular career path was a general sense of desensitization towards holidays, particularly Christmas. I saw the bad side, the demanding customers, the long hours which led to missing out on Christmas-y activities, the relentless sound of "Jingle Bells" on repeat. I didn't realize until much later how dark that time in my life was, how much I had turned on my favorite childhood holidays. I learned how to re-appreciate them through the eyes of my kids.  My children shed light on my dark little world which, as luck would have it, is the point of celebrating Christmas in the first place.

That, and singing Christmas carols at the top of your lungs, unabashedly and unashamed, no matter where you are or what you're doing.

It's important to note that as far as Christmas music is concerned, my usual inner, guarded, hipster, music snob keels over and dies for the entire month (okay fine, the entire month of November too). I do things I wouldn't normally do, like listen to Mariah Carey willingly while singing happily along. It's the wonderful time of the year where I don't care if you're a country singer, a member of the Rat Pack, or an annoyingly perky bubblegum pop star, I will happily listen to your rendition of "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" over and over. I don't judge any musician if he/or she has made a Christmas album, not even Snoop Dogg/Lion . I don't care that I basically spend months listening to slightly different variations of the same fifteen songs, in fact, I love absolutely every minute of it. I pretend to be relieved when January hits and regular music returns, but in actuality I miss the fuzzy-feeling-inducing tunes immediately. They're an irrefutable necessity in the Christmas Spirit equation.

Ben trying to slyly lick a lollipop on my Mom's tree that, unfortunately for him, turned out to be an ornament.

This is also the time of the year where my inner culinary genius finally gets to shine. I'm not what you would call a great cook, generally speaking. It's probably because I'm a picky eater, but I typically spend an inordinate amount of time staring into my refrigerator, helplessly wondering how I could possibly turn this stuff into something edible, before giving up and popping a frozen pizza in. But Christmas is different. Much like my temporary Yuletide love of Mariah Carey, my love of baking Christmas goodies is unbridled. The fact that artichokes make me uncomfortable is no longer relevant at Christmastime. My picky eating habits dissolve instantly. I bake cookies, pies, cakes, you name it as long as it's sugary, buttery, and can be shared with friends or family. One year we made some truffles that we were pretty proud of (incidentally, Josh has been known to channel his inner Julia Child at Christmastime too). And the fact that all of this goody-eating coincides so nicely with sweater-weather? Well that's just the icing on the fruitcake

I also love the traditions of Christmas, from the more traditional traditions of waking up and opening presents to the fun traditions that stem from holiday-related "you had to be there" moments. One of our traditions is celebrating Christmas Eve with my mom, brother, sister-in-law and their kiddos at my mom's house. The night always ends with a game I can only describe as "Attack Uncle Mike" where all of the kids well... attack my brother, their Uncle Mike. I have no idea how or why this tradition started, but it usually ends with my brother lifting my mom's (extremely temperamental) Schnauzer up in the air threatening to make him walk on the ceiling, as he swiftly dodges fact that the dog is trying to bite his hands off. It cracks me up every year.

Anyone up for a round of "Attack Uncle Mike"?

You can tell by the look in his eyes that my brother was one of those kids who tried to burn ants with a magnifying glass.

No matter how excited they are, getting my kids to sleep on Christmas Eve is never a problem. They're always exhausted from my mom's house. They wake up Christmas morning, tear into presents and then immediately beg to go to Nana and Poppy (AKA Josh's parents)'s house. The day flies by in a flurry of family, fires in the fireplace, football, and amazing food. Before we know what happened it's all over, always way too soon. Not just for the kids, but for the grown-ups too.

Baby Layla, enjoying some Christmas goodness and a roaring fire at Nana and Poppy's

I'm daydreaming about Christmas today because school is starting in a couple of weeks and while that might signify the end of happiness to most kids, to me it's the starting point for all of the happiness and good stuff to come. It means that the arrival of the holiday season just around the corner. And despite the fact that I'm sitting in the air-conditioning on a hot July day, beyond the new school year and the arrival of Fall, I can almost smell the cookies and cinnamon candles and Christmas tree lingering in the not-so-distant future.

I can't wait.

Patiently waiting for Christmas.