Well, here we are just a week until my favorite day of the year.
The tree is up and the inside and the outside of the house are all decorated.
The Christmas cards have been sent.
The cookies have been baked, shipped and delivered.
The only cookies left to bake is a batch of chocolate chips and pinwheels for us to enjoy.
Most of the shopping is done.
Any presents that have come into the house have been wrapped.
The food for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be purchased Thursday.
All the snack foods and anything else we want to eat will have been prepped so we will spend minimal time in the kitchen on the 24th and 25th.
My usual goal is when I go to bed on December 23rd everything is done.
I want to wake up on the 24th with nothing to do but enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
I know people love Christmas Day but to me Christmas Eve is so much better.
The anticipation of the next day adds to the excitement.
Jenn and I also always save three gifts for Christmas night to end the day on a nice note.
We also exchange one gift on January 6th (little Christmas).
I also start a week’s vacation at 5:00 PM on the 23rd. I am so ready!
There will be a lot of hustle and bustle this week but the reward at the end of it is 48 hours of pure joy and relaxation.
We will binge watch our favorite Christmas movies.
And enjoy our once a year ritual……eating potato chips.
We do not eat potato chips all year. Only from Christmas Eve until New Year’s Day and then they are gone again for another 51 weeks.
If the weatherman is correct, it will be in the 20’s or 30’s over Christmas weekend which is at it should be.
My Dad loved Christmas like no one else I know.
At Christmas all bets were off and insanity ensued.
He would start Christmas Eve, by making a trip to Zabar’s for some delicacies for Christmas Eve.
Once home from there, he took over the kitchen and cooked the Christmas Eve dinner.
We did not have the traditional Italian 7 kinds of fish dinner. We had his variation which included, shrimp, lobster, clams, squid and some other options. Those allergic to seafood had steaks. The meal would commence round 6 PM and would go on for hours. One year we were so full we had to finish Christmas Eve dinner on Christmas Day.
One year Mom made goose as dad requested. Most years it was a Crown Roast.
Mom had worked for a long time on all the cookies that filled the trays in the kitchen. Many years, trays were sent to our teachers as gifts.
Dad was the person who dragged a sled through the backyard and left footprints and hoof prints in the snow to prove Santa had landed right in our backyard.
Dad was the person who bought his sons $48 set of three Tonka trucks (hook and ladder, pumper truck and an ambulance) when he only made $28 a week at the post office.
Dad was the one who wrapped up boxes with pineapples inside to tell my sister and I we were going to Hawaii.
Dad would start Christmas Eve day by lighting the fireplace and it would burn until we all went to bed Christmas night.
Back in those days, there was one radio station that would play continuous Christmas music for the 48 hours of the 24th and 25th. Dad kept that station on most of those days.
Mom pretty much was responsible for writing out the Christmas cards and the cookie baking.
Dad would go up in the attic and wrap gifts.
If he was whispering to Mom about something and you asked what it was about, he would respond “Secret Doozins” translation “secret doings”.
I absolutely inherited my Dad’s love of Christmas (as many of you know LOL). No secret there!
I hope this weeks goes slow as part of making it so special is the anticipation.
To me the saddest day of the year is December 26th, when I start my countdown again.
In case I don’t write an entry next week, Merry Christmas to All !!
See you next week…..maybe.
PS one last thing….Die Hard is a Christmas movie!
