A Few Of My Favorite Things...

For me, a few of my favorite things are the “Oh, look!” moments as my family prepares for the holiday season. I can recall being a kid, helping my mother drag out all the decorations, and listening to her say it over and over. She would unwrap the angel that went on the top of the tree, or the ornaments my brother and I made in school, and always said “Oh, look, Lisa!” as if she just unwrapped something so valuable. I’d smile and nod because I thought it increased the odds of the Easy Bake Oven I mentioned to Santa, but I honestly thought my mother was making a big deal out of an angel we’d had for years and a few ornaments obviously fashioned by a 1st and 4th grader.

It took a few years, two kids, and an appreciation for a family I now realize is my greatest joy, for me to experience my own “Oh, look!” moments. The angel atop the tree when I was a child had to be replaced by another several years ago, but when I unwrapped her this year, guess what I said. She is special to me because the last Christmas I shared with my father, his dog kept knocking the tree around, and Daddy would send me up onto the ladder to straighten the angel before Mama noticed she was about to topple over. There are the first Christmas ornaments my parents bought my boys. When I unwrap them and say “Oh, look boys!” I know they are smiling and nodding because they’re thinking about video games and new cell phones… I wonder what their kids will be thinking about when they smile and nod years from now? There are the wooden reindeer my father made, and my brother and I painted, the Happy Holidays tray my cousin Diana made for us the Christmas before she passed away, the Christmas dishes my grandmother gave my mother I hope to pass on to a granddaughter one day… I unwrap gift after gift, all the things that bring back memories that are so valuable to me. Nothing will ever be more precious than my last Christmas with my father and my cousin, or my first with each of my sons. And though I can clearly recall a few of my favorite things being the Easy Bake Oven and Barbie doll Santa remembered to bring me, today most of them are the same things that once made my mother say, “Oh, look!” as she unwrapped the gifts of cherished memories with friends and family.

I am wishing you all the happiest of holiday seasons!