Back in August I wrote a fun post about some kinds of people I love. You all were so great! You added your own loving thoughts at the end of that post, on Facebook,Twitter, and in email, and it was one big warm fuzzy. Let’s do that again for Christmas, okay? Okay!
At Christmastime I love people who…
Send out Christmas cards with cute family photos in them.
Send out Christmas letters giving updates
on their family’s major events from the past year.
Or forget to actually mail their Christmas cards
even though they were purchased last year on sale and are just so cute.
(Not that I’ve ever done that.)
I love people who are devoted to real trees
and buy them from the same tree lot every year.
Also people who go cut down their Christmas tree, Clark Griswold style.
Who use artificial, pre-lit trees and fluff them out religiously.
Or who fawn over elegant flocked trees.
I really am crazy about people who love their antique metal trees.
I love people who host cookie exchanges and wear Santa aprons and silly sweaters.
I love people who faithfully buy those round tins of Danish butter cookies
and share them with me.
People who build actual gingerbread houses? Those folks are just plain legit. Amazing.
I love people who feel passionately, one way or another, about Elf on a Shelf.
You just do you. And I’ma do me. Okay.
I have been known to actively defend parents who lie to their children
for too many years about Santa, etcetera.
It’s magical. I love you for lying about it a little. Or a lot.
I love every one of you who hangs a stocking, leaves cookies for Santa,
or feeds Santa’s reindeer (we do that).
Do you observe Advent? Do you light one more candle each week, pray,
and read devotionals with each other?
I love you. That is beautiful.
I love manger scene traditions and Christmas pageants,
solemn hymns at midnight and angels and stars as tree toppers.
I also love families who sing only the ridiculous, funny holiday tunes!
Who doesn’t, deep down, want a hippopotamus under the tree?
At Christmastime I adore folks who go all out
making handmade gifts, baking elaborate sweets,
covering every edible thing in the house with chocolate,
and crafting perfect paper snowflakes. I love those things!
I also think people who stick with gift cards are the bomb-diggity,
because they usually have more time to cuddle and watch movies!
Like Elf.
I really really love people who hang lights on their house,
whether it’s a simple white strand over the front door
or a complex, colorful, set-to-music extravaganza
that triples the electricity bill. It matters.
How could we ever go on without the tradition keepers?
How could we ever manage to laugh at ourselves without the more carefree among us?
I love all of you, each of you, for every bit of magic you bring to Christmas, year after year.
And to those of you who I’ll see this season, I hope I can find some magic to cast in your direction, too.
Merry Christmas!!
XOXOXOXO
What a fun post! I love you! 🙂 You are delightful, like a ray of sunshine in a dark world.
You’re too sweet, Christina, thank you! It can be a dark world for sure. I know you’re having a tough month. Sending you so much love. xoxoxo thank you as always for visiting!
I love everything you make Christmas be……… I grew up with many Christmas traditions that have passed on with the death of family members. I am so lucky that you have made new, wonderful traditions!
I love you so much. I know Christmas will never be quite the same for you, but I’ll be here for everything no matter what. And we’ll do everything we can to keep the best traditions alive. xoxoxo ANF.
Reminds me of a song my brother loved by Tom T. Hall — “I Love.” Beautiful, wonderful post, Marie. I want a flocked tree and solemn hymns at midnight. Merry Christmas!
http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-love-lyrics-tom-t-hall.html
Thank you so much, Jen! And I have to tell you that when I wrote that first “I love people who…” Post, I’d recently been listening to that exact song. So sweet and warm! Also how about “What a Wonderful World?” Louis Armstrong, right? Much love to you. Thanks for reading and sharing!! xoxo
You do you and I’ma do me. Love that.