Christmas in July!

Ho ho ho.........Merry Christmas........in July! 

For those of you who know me you also know that I love the holidays! I especially cherish the time from Thanksgiving up to the New Year! The food, family and festivities truly warm me up from the inside out......AND here in the desert it is finally cold! 

There are certain traditions I have for the holidays. I HAVE to bake dessert and take it to Thanksgiving dinner. My mama always taught me to NEVER show up at someone's home who is hosting dinner empty handed! I have to put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving.......oh, who am I kidding, as soon as Tim lets me put it up it is up and that is anytime in the month of November and James, Santa does come through and throws up in our house! I am a lucky girl to have someone so tolerant of my quirky habits:-) I MUST bake Christmas cookies and a LOT of them, mmmmmmmmmm!!!!! You see, these are not traditions I have just drawn from a hat and chosen to do, like any tradition I was taught this from an early age. 

My Lupus tends to really restrict my activities. Tim is very vigilant when it comes to these limitations. Tim's mom and dad and all of our friends and other family members watch over me and the first sniffle or slow movement I make I am told to relax and rest. I think Christmas is the ONLY time of the year I can get away with anything! I love it so much and everyone knows that! I will look at them with those sad Lupie eyes and stick that lip out and BAM, I can bake as many cookies as I want! No wonder it is the most wonderful time of the year! 

The real reason I love the holidays is that it brings everyone together. No distance is to far to travel to see your loved ones. No one is sick during those moments and everyone is united through celebration and just being together. I think of Christmas Eve dinner in Pasadena. After everyone is there the dinner is served and through low dim lights and candles burning we all come together for one moment. We say the family prayer and I always look around the table at everyone. I see Tim and his brother Chris joking about when they were kids. Tim's dad is laughing at the boys and Tim's mom looks at them and is so happy to just have them together in this one moment. It may have been a tough year but in that moment it feels as if this was the best year ever! 

It seems as if most of us hang on to that feeling through the beginning of the year but sometime in the spring we all tend to loose it and forgot what really is the most important thing in our lives. It isn't the doctor's appointments or the new medicine you have to try. It isn't about the sad time you have to spend isolated from the rest of the world. It is about the most simple concept and feeling you and I have.......love. We love our families and our friends and today we need to remember that the love we feel for them is not something you celebrate once a year around a candle lit table. It is something you celebrate everyday of the year for the rest of your life. You do not need a tree and carols to bring you back home. All you need is a little bit of love.