I am a *total* Christmas/Yule freak. I *love* giving prezzies. I love going out to shop to find either just the right gift or the makings of it. I love stopping while out to get a cookie & milk (for her) or coffee (me).

Don’t get me wrong – I like getting presents as much as the next person; but, finding/making the very thing that will make your loved one’s eyes light up? Yeah, that’s one of the best feelings in the world to me. It can be something complex that you crafted, a spendy sort of gift, a card with a poem that you wrote, a basket of their favorite cookie, a piece of fabric that you know they will love or a hug at just the right moment. And yeah, I know that you can do that sort of thing all year. But, its nice when alot of people are feeling that goodwill, as well.

I Santa’d for my neighbors growing up — wrapping presents & putting together toys — every year. That was my gift to them. It allowed them to spend more time with their kids & elderly parents. And, I got to spend more time with my Mom because she would usually come and help me wrap.*

I also LOVE the idea of Santa. I hope that Girlie keeps believing in him until she’s nine or ten. Even if she doesn’t really. We will set out cookies & a thermos of coffee for that jolly old elf this year, even though she is going to be at her Dad’s house. I will take pictures of her stocking Christmas Eve & then again on Christmas morning and send them to her (via her Dad’s cell phone) so that she will know that he showed up and dropped off goodies for her.

I am thinking seriously of having a holiday cookie baking/decorating thang in my house for all my friends & their kids (them what has ’em) sometime before I have to give up the ‘kins to her Dad. Maybe on/around the 14th or 15th of December.

*ponders*

* – yeah, my Mom is one of those people who has a Monk-like tendency to wrapping presents. All of her gifts are superbly, expertly wrapped. With fluttery, curley-que ribbons and matching tags. Its a *thing* with her.