Things I Love About Christmas

One of my favorite things about Christmas is getting Christmas letters!  I love hearing about everyone’s news and how their year has been.  Sure, some letters might be a little boastful, but mostly they are newsy and funny and creative and make me feel connected to friends that I don’t otherwise have much contact with.  Keep them coming, people!!

Another thing I love about Christmas is the chance to do thoughtful things for people.  If you show up on the doorstep of a relative stranger with a loaf of freshly baked bread, they will smile and thank you and even wish you a Merry Christmas.  For that brief moment I feel connected to my neighborhood in a way that I don’t get most of the rest of the year (we’re not a very sociable neighborhood!!).  And if you are visiting teaching someone who doesn’t normally like you to come visit, Christmas is one time of the year when you can come knocking on the door with goodies and you are likely to be met with a smile (though maybe not an invitation to come in!!)

Probably the thing that I like best about Christmas is the reminder, all month long, of the birth of our Savior and the promise His birth brought to the earth and still brings, so many years later.  More than any other time of the year, I feel a push to do better, to be more Christlike, to look past all my day-to-day concerns and remember why I’m really on this earth.