December is nearly here and we all know what that means. Christmas is nearly upon us. I have to admit Christmas is one of my most favourite times of year. I love everything about the winter months. Maybe not so much the freezing toes that feel like they have succumbed to frostbite but everything else I definitely love. The frosty mornings that look so beautiful, the hot chocolates, cosying up in chunky jumpers, watching Christmas movies and just the feeling of excitement and anticipation that seems to fill the air in December.
I know for a lot of people Christmas means gifts and the excitement of exchanging and receiving, and I absolutely have been one of those people in the past- now I'm not so much. A combination of getting older and having children has changed me. Now I sit and reminisce about days when I was younger and even Christmases at home in my early 20s and the things the I remember and treasure the most from those days are the times and the moments we were all together. I couldn't tell you what I received at any given year but what I could tell you about are the drives over the country roads in the snow to see my granny, coming home on Christmas eve night in the freezing cold after midnight mass to cosy up in front of the fire and have a drink or nibbles with all of us around, eating mummys turkey curry after boxing day after a night out. Christmas is about the people not the things. What I would do to go back and enjoy one more Christmas like that just to really savour it all. It's true what they say that as you get older you realise that the things you really want for Christmas are things that money cant buy.
This Christmas I am off- anybody who works in the health care sector will tell you how precious that is. You either have to be on maternity leave or actually be dead to be off this time of year. So I plan to enjoy every single minute. I want to spend it with my little family, making our traditions, our memories that we will treasure in the years to come. I don't want it to ever be about the presents. I'm not a scrooge by any means, I love to treat people but these days it's less about wasting money on impulse purchases and more about spending time with the ones we love. Sure getting a wee gift is lovely but I truly believe that it gets a bit too much- sometimes I think we get so hung up on the presents when really all we need to have a 'wonderful' Christmas is each other. Life shouldn't be about the things.
I know many years ahead there'll be Christmases when Aoibhin and Cathal will be off travelling, living life, making their own memories so now is my time to make our memories together, because I want them to look back on Christmases at home with their Mummy and Daddy the way I do and think of the fun, the laughter, the togetherness. That is what Christmas is about for me.
oh and new pyjamas of course.
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