Day 23 & 24 Christmas Memory and 5 things I love about Christmas

Wow! It's a very late Christmas miracle that I am blogging again.  For the longest time I've been stuck on "Day 22 - A family photo" because I've been meaning to get a new family photo and it just hasn't happened.  Hopefully this Spring we will get family photos taken, so I decided to skip that post and move on because, let's be honest, this 30 days of blogging has turned into almost a year!  Wow!

Moving on. . .

Day 23: A Christmas Memory:
Childhood - Christmas eve dinner by candlelight, with our own candles clipped to our plates.  One year my cousin's hair caught of fire!  My parents inviting families, or widows over for this dinner who they knew didn't have family in Utah to share Christmas with.

Waking up Christmas morning. Not being allowed into the living room to see what Santa brought until AFTER all five of us children were dressed, our beds made, have eaten breakfast, and the dishes were done.  Talk about torture!  Then we were lined up in order of youngest to oldest to enter the living room where Santa had left our gifts.

My senior year of high school, getting Phantom of the Opera tickets, third row.  Even though I'd seen in three times I cried I was so excited! It was completely unexpected and exactly what I wanted. (Could someone please do that for me for Wicked!?)

As a child - Going to my Grandma and Grandpa Martin's house to say hello and see cousins.  Wearing my coat in the living room, seeing my breath, to play with cousins because the heat was always turned off to save money.  The kitchen was always toasty warm if we got too cold because they used their gas oven to heat it.  Parting the heavy blanket that hung in the doorway between the living room and the nice warm kitchen and being hit with a blast of welcome warmth.

Going to my Grandma and Grandpa Yospe's for the rest of the day to visit with my father's side of the family and have Christmas dinner.  Having my Grandpa Yospe, a former Jew-converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints- and a police officer read The Littlest Angel every year and having him cry every year, which made all the rest of the family cry and not having a dry eye in their house by the end of the book.

DAY 24: Five things I love about Christmas:
1. The anticipation and Spirit of Christ-mas. To me this is the BEST part about Christmas.  The waiting for it to happen.
2.  Being Santa.  It is so fun to be Santa to my own little family now.
3.  The food.
4.  Being with family.
5.  Looking at Christmas lights and window displays.