Christmas

D and I had this entire weekend off together, and yesterday afternoon we went to Target to pick up a few things and ended up getting lost in the Christmas section for an hour, pointing out our favorite kinds of ornaments and decorations, laughing about the hot pink tinsel trees, choosing what we will eventually go back for when we have the money to decorate the house to the extremes that we want.  

I'm a huge dork about Christmas.  My mom always had all kinds of special decorations that we would get out around the end of November, and it was a ritual we looked forward to every year--putting the candles in the windows, getting out the superfluous numbers of advent calendars for each of the kids, trading old candles and centerpieces and rugs for festive ones with snowflakes and santas and stockings.  My dad would play every Christmas carol he knew on the piano while we decorated the house and the tree, and year in and year out those are my dearest memories. 

Yesterday was the first time D and I have really started to consider our own Christmas rituals, and it was the cherry on top of a wonderful day.