The festive holiday

"Above all else, though, Christmas is about children and it is this association with innocence, the link with our own childhood, that is the evocative and motive aspect of the season. Our prime concern as adults is that the children, especially the younger ones, have a memorable and happy time. It's difficult not to share their sense of mounting excitement as the year advances and first the Christmas period and then the day itself approaches. (By the same token, its easy to understand why people without children rarely show great enthusiasm for Christmas...) By entering into the spirit of Christmas, we allow ourselves to indulge briefly in a world of innocence and in a childlike sense of wonder. That purity of feeling was stolen from us when we became world-weary grown-ups, but at Christmas we can suspend our skepticism and cynicism, forget the harsher world of adult experience for a while, surrender ourselves to sentimentality, and join in the awe and the wonder of the excitement. In short, we become children again. There's nothing cool or clever about liking Christmas, and that, I suspect, is what I like about it."

-Naill Edworthy

pg 13. The curious world of Christmas: Celebrating All that Is Weird, Wonderful and Festive. A Perigee Book, 2007.

I wish I had a cute picture for this post. Maybe they are coming, and maybe just maybe...

The greatest part of Christmas with children is hearing Santa's bells ring. Yes, we hear Santa's bells in our houses, just like my mother heard Santa's bells in her grandma's house, and I heard it in my mother's house. My son hears them in mine on Christmas eve and in his grandma's house. Last night, my son was sitting on his dad's lap with his cousin. When all of sudden they heard the bells. My son whispered quietly, "Santa's bells" They ran up the stairs as quietly and quickly as a 3 year old and a 4 year old could possibly go/be. My boy was waiting in the bathroom doorway for someone to turn on the light. He told me, I have to brush my teeth super quick tonight, Santa is coming.

Sure its great to see him pick up a toy/present and declare oh wow, its what I always wanted. But its pure magic to watch a child hear the bells, and be so giddy they can barely manage being the fastest they have been all year.