Okay, I have a confession—I'm addicted to the holidays. I love them, November and December are my favorite months of the year, and, well, I'm obsessed. I am that friend; The one that listens to Christmas music in September and keeps the Christmas specials on the DVR year round. I wait patiently for the Charlie Brown episodes, and I drink hot chocolate until I can't drink it anymore. Call me crazy, but the to me, it's the best time of the year.
I don't know what it is, but I just look forward to that time of the year. I love the chill in the air and the smell of the snow (I totally know what Lorelai Gilmore meant when she said she could smell snow) and the way everything turns from the brown that lingers at the end of fall into the crystal-y white that covers everything after the first snowfall. I look forward to the red noses and white snowflakes that litter my hair after a brief walk outside. I'm not in the holidays for the sales or the presents. I'm in it for the happiness that surrounds me.
Thanksgiving is the one holiday I will always remember being with my whole family. Every year, my parents and I would drive to Kansas to spend Thanksgiving break with our extended family. I have no unhappy memories from those times, which is why I look forward to it every year. It is the one time my whole family gets together and just enjoys being together. I get to see my cousins and aunts and uncles who I don't get to see all the time, and we can catch up like no time has passed. My cousins always took me Black Friday shopping, and to me it was getting to spend time with them, and act "grown up" like they were. Plus, they tended to have killer fashion advice.
Christmas. Where do I even begin? When it come's to Christmas, I have no limit. I love everything about the Christmas season. I sing out Christmas carols loud and proud and I spend hours decorating the tree until it's just right. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I don't love it for the music or the shows, though, those are just bonuses. When I was younger, Christmas was the day both my siblings came home. They were always at our house for Christmas afternoon and had Christmas dinner with my parents and I. They were a lot older, so I always looked forward to Christmas because all of us were together, and life just seemed perfect.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the whole year. I don't skip over holidays, I celebrate them whole-heartedly. But, when November rolls around, and it becomes that time of year again just seems special. Something inside me lights a little fire, and everything just seems a little more magical.