It's Christmas, whether you like it or not.

The most wonderful time of year. The holidays. Christmas. Tends to get one of two responses from people: 1) Overwhelming exhaustion 2) Complete disgust. 

No one seems to love Christmas anymore. 

I've always been a sucker for the terribly fabricated holiday. I like having an excuse to have nothing to do, or an excuse to do whatever I want because "it's Christmas!" is a lot more easily accepted than "it's Tuesday!". 

My family has its routine, as I'm sure most do. In fact, very little has changed for me during the Christmas season from when I was much smaller and far more enthralled. Having a big family helps that, as we always get together multiple times during December. First with the big 75+ person Shannon Christmas, the smaller 30+ Mullins Christmas (Sadly, I missed this year). Then the closer family like grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles & cousins. Overall it makes for a jam packed month, but always a relief to know you'll see these people and be able to check up on them at least this once this year. The only real difference from being a child and now seems to be how quickly it goes by, and how those last few days before hand that used to drag out never-ending don't matter so much anymore. 

I won't berate anyone on it being "the season of giving", or "put the Christ back in Christmas". 

To be continued... maybe...