X-Mas

To me Christmas is a celebration, which includes spending time with my family, decorating the entire house, inside and out, and shopping, for the people I love. Doing this with the people I love is what means the most to me.

Spending Christmas with my family is very important to me. We usually gather and celebrate at my parent's house, in East Tennessee. My husband, our three children, and myself travel from California. My two sisters, their husbands, and children come from a nearby town, for our celebration. We spend the day baking cookies, making fudge and preparing a big Christmas dinner, with all the trimmings. The children love to see each other. They spend the day playing games and sharing their new gifts and toys that Santa Claus brought for each of them. They get so eager to decorate, that it is hard to restrain them.

Decorating for Christmas is so much fun. My father always draws a new background scenery, for the Nativity scene, that he displays, every year. He, my brother-in-laws and my husband start with the decorations for the outside of the house and the front yard. Every year, my parents add a little more to the outside decorations. My mom, sisters, our children and myself decorate the inside of the house. My mom has so many indoor decorations that they can not all possibly be displayed. We try to change the decorations, which we put out every year. The men finish up just about the same time as, we women and then it is time to decorate the tree together. The children love this the most. The tree is always real, and is usually six to seven feet tall. Most of the ornaments have been collected over the years and are very old. They have become real family treasures. We all have a favorite one that we each put on the tree. All the children put their First Christmas ornament on the tree, that I brought, as a gift.

I am not usually a shopper, but during the Christmas season, I actually enjoy shopping. I rarely go into department stores, but during the Christmas season, I love to shop. The stores are so beautifully decorated and very festive. I can easily get carried away, with spending so much money. I must admit the thought of spending too much money hardly comes to mind. I can just picture of look on the faces, of my family and that brings me so much joy. Some, gifts I have picked out and purchased months ahead of time, either through catalogs, or shopping a little early, when stores have