Because the meat and potatoes of the holiday season right around Christmas and New Years always involves traveling, extended family, friends, etc., and is always hectic, we've created our own special day when we decorate our tree the first weekend in December.
We cook up a bunch of snack foods (some homemade, some frozen) and prepare that together. We all have our different tree jobs (mine is just to get the thing in the stand) and listen to our favorite Christmas CD (soundtrack from Merry Christmas Charlie Brown). We spend the day doing all that, hanging stockings, play a game or two, maybe work on a puzzle, and usually watch Merry Christmas Charlie Brown and A Christmas Story in the evening once the tree's done.
This year we're going to start giving the boys a special gift from my W and I on that day.
We started it kind of by accident, but it's become my favorite day of the season because it's just us four and pulling out all that stuff gets us talking and reminiscing about when the kids were younger, all that. It's a good time.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -- Inigo Montoya, 'The Princess Bride'
