I love Christmas. It’s a very special time of year for me; many of my most significant life events have happened in December (more on that in a future post). But this year, for the first time, it wasn’t easy for me to get in the Christmas mood. A few weeks ago, I started working on the gift list, I got our holiday card ready, and I started checking Amazon daily for their lightening deals. (I am not a Black Friday deals shopper- I hate crowds- but I do love a good cyber-sale.) I started using my Spode, which is usually a huge deal for me. But all of those chores felt completely obligatory; I wasn’t feeling that special Christmas joy.
So on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I decided to do a full-on Christmas immersion: every single Christmassy thing I could pack into one day. My husband and I started off with our favorite special-occasion winter breakfast, homemade waffles with bacon. We put on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (his choice) and put the Christmas tree up while Edwin was napping. (We finally gave in last year and got a pre-lighted fake tree, but we searched everywhere to make sure it was the most realistic-looking one we could find.) We took our time throughout the day spreading the other decorations around the house. While I fed Edwin his meals, I played Christmas music on the kitchen iPod (see below for my list of Christmas spirit music), sang carols and danced to Edwin’s delight. I baked a small batch of Christmas cookies in the afternoon. In the evening, after Edwin was in bed, Nick and I watched White Christmas (my choice) accompanied by the cookies and some hot chocolate. I didn’t get out of my red-checked pajama pants all day. And by the end of the day, I had found my Christmas spirit!
Now I’m working on a holiday bucket list (which I’ll publish here) to make sure that spirit stays with me throughout the season and doesn’t get bogged down with gift-wrapping and over-scheduling.
What do you do to get into the holiday spirit?
Leanne’s List of Christmas-Spirit Songs:
Carol of the Bells (any version)
Jingle Bells (Michael Bublé)
Santa Baby (Michael Bublé)
Blue Christmas (Michael Bublé)
You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch (Rockapella)
White Christmas (Bing Crosby)
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Ella Fitzgerald; Judy Garland)
Winter Song (Sara Bareilles)
One More Sleep til Christmas (The Muppet Christmas Carol Soundtrack)
Cool Yule (Louis Armstrong)
Winter Wonderland (Tony Bennett)
Our tree, 11/27/13
I lost my Christmas spirit years ago (working every christmas for several years in a row can do that…) and I”m trying to find it again now that i have kids old enough to appreciate the season. I love your music list…one of the things I wanted to do this year was to find the perfect playlist of holiday music (and play it constantly, over my husband’s protests!).
Good luck finding it, Ana! Music is a huge spirit-lifter. May I suggest finding a local holiday concert, or even a carol sing, to attend with your family? There’s something special about setting aside time to sit with others and just appreciate good music. (Of course, I’d rather be the one performing on stage, but I’ll take what I can get!) PS- the whole Michael Buble Christmas album is great- I had to restrain myself from listing it all!