Traditions

I am home with the flu today, but I will still make a point to do my traditional day-after-Thanksgiving rituals.....the stockings will be hung, Santa will make his way to the mantel, and I will start listening to Christmas carols.

I always start with my favorite version of O Holy Night (from Christmas with the Cambridge Singers), listen to it several times and get good and weepy and sentimental, then move on to perkier stuff like Run, Run Rudolph, by Bryan Adams.

Once I get the decorations taken care of, I'll settle in with a few magazines that are near and dear to my heart, that I look at every year, never tiring of their beauty, and the excited feeling I get looking at them!


Tonight when he comes home from work, I will give my sweet husband his annual pre-Christmas gift (s), which is usually whatever new Christmas CDs I buy. This year is Bob Dylan's "Christmas in the Heart" ...I know, can you stand it?? Bob Dylan and Christmas?? Who knew??? But my husband is a fan, so I had to get it! Also this year is Sting's "If on a Winters Night". The hubs really likes Sting's version of Gabriel's Message from the first Very Special Christmas, and I really like kind of Celtic gloomy, medieval stuff, so we're excited about this. (I REALLY should have gotten the newest Very Special CD, by the way; I notice they have one out again, but nothing looked very good. Apparently I am so old I haven't heard of many of the artists....I'll probably just donate directly to Special Olympics instead.)

Finally, David will stop at Coffee Bean on his way home from work, and get us each a large ice-blended mocha with whip cream and two extra shots, and even before I give him his gifts, we will turn everything off but the tree lights, and listen to "We Three Kings", by Patty Smith, from Very Special Christmas 3. It is our mutually favorite Christmas song, and we both love this simple but very meaningful ritual!

What are your favorite rituals and traditions for early in the season?