Feeling Christmas

So, for many who know me, you know that I'm something of a Christmas freak.  I'll listen to Christmas music at any given time in the year, I look forward to Black Friday shopping and will even map out my route, and I try to come up with as many different traditions as possible.  This year, however, has been a little different.  With moving, Brandon searching for a new job, and the fact that all of this has thrown me into a certain disorganization, it doesn't really feel like Christmas.  So, I've had to just let Christmas come, instead of creating that feeling.  Does that even make sense?  Instead of shopping the day after Thanksgiving, I was traveling through Wyoming with my little family listening to Christmas music and just talking.  It was wonderful!  Instead of a spreadsheet (yes, I am a nerd) that I create every year to figure out what gifts we're giving to which family member, I just made sure that we kept it simple, but thoughtful.  And as a family, we've just tried to spend time together doing things we love doing.  We set up the Christmas tree in the midst of boxes in various stages of unpacking.  We drive around at the end of our busy days to look at Christmas lights.  We go to the library and pick out Christmas books to read together in the evening before Nicholas goes to sleep.  We love driving downtown, so we looked up Christmas activities going on down there first, and got to experience some Cincinnati Christmas traditions that neither of us had ever been to before.  And I've pretty much given up on my Christmas cards this year once I ran out of two way tape to put them all together.  I sent them out to our family members, but beyond that, I have to apologize and will promise to get them out next year to all our friends!  This year we're keeping things simple in order to keep sane!  It is definitely helping us to focus on the simple, yet beautiful purpose of this season: to celebrate the birth of our Savior.