It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

"I'm happy as Christmas." - Ed Roland (Lead Singer, Collective Soul, lifted from Better Now, off the Collective Soul CD 'Youth')

Even though the weather outside is more like the middle of March and College Basketball's March Madness time than the middle of December and College Football Bowl Game time; and even though we had snow for the World Series and green grass for Christmas, I still cannot get enough of the Christmas Season.

I really like the month long build up to the Christmas celebration. It is my favorite time of the year. I do like the hustle and bustle it creates. I actually enjoy walking through a mall and people watching and taking in the decorations and energy that happens during Christmas. The lights, the decorations, the music, the anticipation, the joy, even the chill in the air and the snow. I'll take it all. I do not want to do without any of it.

The music is what makes the whole season. It brings Christmas to life for me. The carols of Christmas can transport me to the first Christmas, back to Bethlehem, envisioning what is being sung through the radio to me. Songs about Roasting Chestnuts, Winter Wonderlands, and Sleigh Rides can make me feel the chill and warmth at the same time. I guess because the songs offer some of the best memories I have growing up and have remained the same, the memories can transcend generations and age. The songs and carols I sang as a wide-eyed, 8-year old bubbling over with excitement and barely staying still in church, just wanting to get home and open presents are the same carols and songs I sing now, 20 years later as an adult and husband with a child just a few short weeks from starting to take in the same memories and sing the same songs I have. Every year, those musical creations add more memories and deepen my enjoyment of this time of year.

Christmas time truly is the most wonderful time of the year.