What Christmas means to me.

What does Christmas mean to me? Christmas means family, love, and hope.  It is the time of year when Families and Friends come from all over the world to be with the people that they love most.  I just love the red and green decorations, and my beautifully decorated Christmas tree sitting in the den.  Most of the ornaments have been collected over the years and have become real family treasures! It means traditions, brightly-wrapped gifts, and Santa Claus.

It also means more than that to me. It means a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. It means a perfect baby growing into a sinless man. It means tinsel, cookies, and hot cocoa. It means hope, peace, and giving. Christmas is a time of birth and love, a time for family, gifts, and a time for remembrance too.

Christmas means going to sleep on Christmas Eve with your heart racing and waking up on Christmas morning with your heart pounding and your dreams soaring to the skies. It means hanging stockings and saying prayers and enjoying the blessings we have. Christmas is commercialized, it's true, but the meaning, beneath the twinkling lights and ruby poinsettias, is as pure as anything on this Earth, at least it is to me.

 It is being together with your family, listening to Christmas carols, baking cookies, and preparing a big Christmas dinner, with all the trimmings.  It is a time when you try to be at your best. Christmas means so many things that are hard to put into words. Christmas is a time of giving and receiving, a time of faith, love, and wishes. Christmas is a magical time when dreams come true. That's what Christmas means to me.

Merry Christmas!