Friday 5

Holiday Season Edition
What's your favorite holiday ...

1. Song?
2. Movie or TV special?
3. Memory?
4. Baked good or desert?
5. Each year, what's the one moment that lets you know it's officially the holiday season?

My favorite Holiday is Christmas...it has nothing to do with the gifts, it has a little to do with Jesus. The reason is because this is when everything in nature that dies and comes back is just about dead and this is the point where it will start to do what it needs to do to grow and come back bigger and better the next season. I love this time of growth and renewal. I think the fact that we celebrate Jesus' birthday this time of year, even though we are pretty sure this is not when he was born, is an added special thing because Jesus has a special place in so many of our lives and it makes this time so much more special.

1. My favorite holiday songs, well, for Halloween it would be the Purple People Eater...I really don't know if that is meant to be a Halloween song, but it is on a Halloween record of songs my parents bought for the family when I was a kid and I loved it. My favorite Christmas song is Ding Dong Merrily on High. I like Nat King Cole's version the best...he does an awesome job. I can listen to this over and over.

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2. Favorite Holiday Movie or TV Special...hmmm...I like so many, but my favorite Christmas Movie is the Bells of St. Mary's. It is a great story that pulls at the heart strings and to me is so much of what Christmas is about.

3. Favorite Holiday Memory...wow...we have been so many places and have had Christmas with so many people, both family and friends...I guess my greatest Holiday memory would be the Christmas time in Germany when I was 8 or 9. Mom and dad took the sleds to this military training area in the woods that had a great trail to walk. Mom was pulling Jim, or Jami as we called him back then, and Dad was pulling me. It was awesome...we would stop once in awhile and Jim and I would walk ahead of mom and dad pulling the sleds...Jim was about 5 or 6 then. Dad was throwing snow balls up in the trees to make snow fall on us...we didn't know he was doing it at the time...it was funny when the snow would fall...Mom lost control of Jim at one point on the sled and they both almost fell over into a ravine with water and ice at the bottom...that would not have been good, but Dad saved the day. I don't know how long we spent out there because as you know as a kid times like that can seem longer than they really were, but it was awesome...a great memory of a lot of fun my family could have together doing a simple thing.

4. Baked good or dessert? Well, it has to be baked goods for me. I think that may also come from living in Germany. My best memory of baked goods...well, I have two...both in Germany...I used to walk home for lunch from school everyday in Ludwigsburg. The "pastry lady" as we called her would drive a Volkswagen van through our apartment community selling pastries and German pretzels. She was always on one of the streets I passed on my way home for lunch and I would get something to go with my lunch. I could afford the calories back then as I was an active kid, playing sports and always playing outside. The other time was around that same time period and I was chosen to go to Munich with two other kids to represent our school at a leadership conference. It was so cool. We took a train and had one teacher for a chaperone. We went to museums and things and we stayed on a German military base where the conference was held. The German soldiers who worked in the mess prepared our meals. For the m ost part they were really good, but they also had a Kantina that I would go by on the way to our dorms...and they had pastries!! One of the students from France that sat with us wrote on my folder for the event that I was the "pastry girl"...it became a joke with all of us...another good memory and just the word pastry made me think of it.

5. Each year, what's the one moment that lets you know it's officially the holiday season? Well, the weather does it for me. When it starts to get cold that is when I start to think of the holidays. But Christmas season does not start for me until Thanksgiving evening when I play my first Christmas song. This is a family tradition that I have carried on in my own house. Now, to go get ready to hand out candy and toys today....