This is a very special award dedicated to having wonderful Christmas spirit!
It was passed on to me by my friend Debbie at http://confessionsofaplateaddict.blogspot.com/ Please visit her blog to get to know this sweet and very special person. Her posts are funny, lively and her travel tales and pictures are wonderful! Thank you Debbie, from the bottom of my heart!

Here are the rules for the Christmas award:
You must be a true Christmas lover to receive this award. The person to whom you give the award must also be in love with Christmas. You must link back to the person who gave you the award. You must list 5 things that you love about Christmas. If you can't limit it to 5 things, then keep going till you run out of space! Pass the award along to as many people as you like. That can be 1 or 50. It's up to you! But, you must pass it on to at least one person in order to keep the Christmas cheer going! Let your recipients know that you have tagged them by leaving them a comment.

Here are my favorite things about Christmas

1. The lighting of the Square. On the Friday after Thanksgiving our town celebrates the start of the season by lighting up our courthouse square. The stores stay open late and everyone gathers to sing carols and wait for Santa to flip the switch. Although our little town has grown tremendously over the past 20 years, this evening is really about community and sharing the Christmas spirit with friends old and new. The look on the children's faces are priceless.

2. Children. The other night I was doing one of my most detested chores, grocery shopping. It had not been a great day and I was really in no mood to shop. As I turned the corner of one aisle, there were two little girls waiting by their mom's shopping cart. They were singing Jingle Bells loudly and with absolute abandon and good cheer. They were in their own little world, just filled with the fun and magic of Christmas. Needless to say, I left with a very different attitude than I came in with. God bless kids!

3. Decorating our tree. Nothing brings home the spirit of Christmas to me more than seeing all of the decorations we have accumulated over the past 28 years together. Every year when we bring them out, we spend hours going over the stories behind almost everything on the tree. Now that our daughter is older, she has taken over the tree duty at our house. It is such a wonderful time to reminisce and give her some of her family history.

4. Christmas cards. I love getting Christmas cards from far-flung family and friends that we do not get to see nearly as often as we would like. I still get cards from people that I went to high school with (back in the dark ages) who I haven't seen in over 20 years!

5. Watching A Christmas Story (over and over again) The department store scenes bring back so many memories for me - not that I ever ran into a Santa quite that rude!

Now to pay this forward, so to speak. I have met so many wonderful people in blogland, and everyone has been incredibly sweet and supportive. I would like to pass this on to Barb at Grits and Glamour. She epitomizes the Christmas spirit for me. She was recently hospitalized and her main concern was that her tree be decorated for her adorable grandson. So please Barb, accept this with my best wishes for a Very Merry Christmas and prayers for your family who are overseas. If you haven't visited Barb's blog, you really should. She has wonderfully creative ideas and a wicked good sense of humor! Visit her at http://gritsglamour.blogspot.com/