Getting into the Spirit

I’m not a big Christmas guy. Even now, coming up on my third non-retail Christmas, I find it a bit tough to sink into the season. But I do have a few go-to pieces of the holidays that never fail to make me smile.

The first? LEGO.

I know, I know, you’re looking at me like I’m crazy, but hear me out. Every year for the last seven or so years, LEGO has released a ‘Winter’ themed set, and we’ve snapped them up. A lot of folks put up a little holiday village in their homes, and we’re no different. It’s just our village is made of LEGO.

This year we’re roasting marshmallows.

I take quite a bit of joy in setting up little scenes in the village, including (of course) hiding little versions of myself, my husband, and our dog in the display. When people come over, especially our friends who have little people of their own, they often delight in looking through the village, playing with the little figures, and the best part of LEGO is you can’t truly break it. Anything broken is just something that needs to be rebuilt.

And there’s also a LEGO Advent Calendar that comes out every year (today it gave me two small snowmen). Many of the pieces from the advent calendars of past years end up mixed in with the village (many little Christmas trees, many little presents, and a lot of the minifigs, though I’ve never quite figured out why there’s so often a cop-and-thief motif to the LEGO Advent Calendar).

So, putting together my little village is one way I get into the season.

How about you? What gets you in the spirit of Christmas, or Hanukkah, or the holidays in general?

(Hat-tip to Kayleigh Malcolm for suggesting this theme. I’ve been struggling lately to come up with anything positive to say, and she suggested this.)