Yippee! It's MLE: Christmas Is Coming...

I decided to dedicate this post to Christmas. This decision was based on many reasons.... 1) Christmas is my most favorite favorite favorite favorite thing ever. Our family has a lot of ~~silly~~ cute traditions. And I love them all. ("Them" can refer to the traditions AND my family, of course.) 2) My sister, who is also in love with Christmas, has been talking about it on a daily basis and making me yearn for it more and moore. And finally, 3)The weather is getting cooler. Now that it's officially fall the Christmas countdown just has to begin. Cooler weather is Georgia means it is 80 degrees. But hey, we'll take that. Anything but 90, please.

On a side note, I am really excited for the season in general. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Cooler weather...(FINALLY.) Crunchy leaves. Hot chocolate. Christmas cookies (!!!) and on, and on, and on....

So, here are my top 3 reasons as to why I think Christmastime is the best time of year. Excuse me, the most WONDERFUL time of year.

BTW, it's 91 days away in case you were wondering ;)

1) As I said earlier, my family has a lot of traditions that we've been doing for as long as I remember. Actually, even before I was born (what a sad time that was....) We spend Christmas day at my grandparents house, Miss Momma and Mr. Diddy's house to be exact. We all squeeze into their tiny living room. Between the tree, the 7 or 8 of us, the other decorations, and the furniture, we usually have our piles of presents stacked up onto our laps. Now, a lot of families I know get up, run downstairs, and rip open their presents so quickly it is like they know the world will be ending in 3 minutes and they have to get them all opened before the world is over. This is how our Christmas day plays out:
7 am: A and I wake up to see what Mr. Claus has brought. I go back to sleep.
9 am: Russ and MC get out of bed. We eventually get around to eating breakfast.
11 am: After showers, we pack (yes, PACK) up our presents and take them down to Diddy's house. We also bring along lots of cookies and goodies.
noon/1pm: After the presents have been unpacked and put under the tree, and everyone has come and settled down, and Diddy has repeatedly said he would much rather eat before opening presents, and I have whined and whined about everyone taking so long, we finally start opening presents. This process begins by looking in our stockings to see the goodies Santa gave us. We all hang our stockings at Diddy's house and Santa just conveniently knows that all of ours are there. What a smart man. He's great, really. Now, we open presents in order of age. One at a time. I mean really, how great is it to draaaw the process out as loooong as possible?! We totally win that award. I'm not even being sarcastic. It's great.
4-5ish pm: Cooking the Christmas dinner begins. We eat. We are full. We keep eating.
9 pm: The Moore's head home.
midnight: Ann and I cry because we have to wait a whole year for Christmas to come again.

2) Christmas lights and decorations. I mean, seriously. How fun is it when everyone and their mom puts out Christmas decorations?! You don't even want to know how much gas I/my family waste driving around and looking at house after house of beautifully, lit up, sparkling, flashing, some trashy, some classy Christmas decorations. We have our usual spots we hit up regualrly, but we are always on the search for two story Christmas trees. And more lit up wreaths. And more "drive through our property and see the acres and acres of Christmas decorations" places. And more places that try to look (and fail) as beautiful as Downtown Newnan looks at Christmastime.

3) Christmas music. I don't even know where to begin with this topic. We pull out the Christmas cds as soon as the Thanksgiving dinner has been cleaned up. We have made play list after play list after play list. (Want a copy of them? Yes, you do.) You should all do the same because it will make you happy and giddy and sooo Christmasy and then next year you'll be writing a Christmas blog.

This is getting me way too excited. Is it too early to go ahead and pull out the CDs? christmascookingfamilytimechristmasshoppingchristmascarolswinterclothessantastorieschristmasbooks. I promise to stop with these 3 reasons so that I don't create the world's longest blog post. It is possible, but I'm not ready to hold that winning title quite yet. However, I will leave y'all with some pictures of my Christmas' past. Enjoy!

P.S.- Happy fall/91 days until Christmas!!!