Making New Holiday Memories 🎄 🎁

                                     
Is this your favorite holiday of the year? It is mine. I have so many memories of choosing the perfect tree, decorating the house and listening to holiday music. 📝 I have enjoyed Christmas days around the world.  🍨 I have stayed up until midnight wrapping presents 🎁 on Christmas Eve.🎄 I have watched my children 🌄 excitedly open their gifts and stockings until they went off to college. 🍬 🎁 

It is quieter now. Our children have their own homes and families. My husband and I still decorate our house, put up a tree and hang the stockings if we're home. Luckily, we have three grandchildren who live only four hours away. Sometimes they visit us for Christmas or we go there. We are creating new holiday traditions. ✈️ Many years we travel alone over Christmas and then call our children on the holiday. ☎️  We have watched our grandchildren open their gifts 🎁 by phone and can feel their holiday excitement from our hotel room. 🏨 

I have fond Michigan ❄️ childhood memories of sledding with my family on Christmas Eve 🎄 while Santa delivered our gifts. On Christmas Day, we woke up early to open our gifts and then drove a couple hours to visit our grandparents and cousins. 🌟  Anothe holiday memory is when my grandparents moved into a nearby hotel for months.👌 We shared Christmas  🍽 with our cousins in the hotel dining room. I guess it was their way of taking a nearby vacation. Then they moved back home after the holidays. ❤️ 

It's always fun to visit our second son and his family who have settled in Germany. 🇩🇪 We enjoy visiting the local outdoor Christmas Markets. 🎄 As we wander around the craft stalls 🎁 eating warm doughnuts, we sip our hot 🔥 gluh wine. 🍷  It is magical with the snow covered rooftops creating an historic holiday scene. ✨️ 

A California Christmas 🎄 is a modern scene with beaches and sunshine.🌞 I always enjoy reading my grandchildren "The Night Before Christmas" like my Dad used to do. In the morning, we take a family walk 🚶‍♀️ 🚶‍♂️ around the palm tree 🌴 lined neighborhood. Then we enjoy watching our three excited 😊 grandchildren open their stockings and gifts 🎁. In the afternoon we sip hot chocolate 🍫 while watching "Elf" and "A Christmas Carol" on TV.🎄 

Take a moment during the upcoming holidays to reflect 😔 on your blessings 🙌 and create new family memories. ✨️ Enjoy the festive songs 🎵 and treats. Hug your loved ones. ❤️ Tell them about your childhood holiday stories to pass on to their children. 👌 Create Christmas memories that will continue through the years. Enjoy holiday fun and spread the joy 😊 around. 🎄 









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