Most of my favorite childhood memories are from Christmas...but they have nothing to do with the gifts. My favorite memories are of the way our house always looked at Christmas. We lived in an old victorian home with tall ceilings, enormous fire place, beautiful woodwork and an open staircase.

My mother would always pick the largest tree to put in front of the bow windows in the living room and I would lay on the window seat just staring at the lights and ornaments sparking back at me. She never bought garland at the store, she used the branches that were trimmed off of the tree. She would line them along the mantle of the fireplace with white lights and brass angels and cherubs and hang each of our stockings below our angel. I always loved the way the lights reflected off of her brass decorations.

She would wrap the branches in white lights and tie red bows and drape it along the wooden banister of the staircase so it was the first thing you saw when you walked through our front door. I always loved the way our house smelled with parts of our christmas tree every where. They have candles scented that way now of course, but they didn't then... She would spend as much time looking for wrapping paper as she did for our gifts. The paper had to be perfect....and we were never allowed to have the cartoonish paper. It just didn't fit with her norman rockwell kind of christmas.

But my favorite part was Christmas eve.... my mother bought us new matching christmas dresses every year and we never saw them until Christmas eve. The dresses were just for the church service that night and they were always the most beautiful dresses of the year. She would dress us up, do our hair and pose us on a victorian park bench in front of the tree to take our pictures.

Our church always had a candle lit service in the evening and I used to love how our church looked with all of the candles throughout the sanctuary, balcony and every member of the congregation holding one. My mother never liked that part, all three of us girls had long hair and I was much too clumsy to hold my own candle....but I never set anyone or thing on fire...thankfully. Christmas eve was one of the few services throughout the year that my aunt would actually sing during the service. I loved listening to her sing so it was by far the highlight of the night for me.

There was always a christmas party after the service at someone's house. And as fun as they were, my favorite memories are the years that we skipped them. Those were the years that my stepfathers parents would come to our house after church and stay with us until we fell asleep. I used to love laying around in my special little christmas dress and tights eating christmas cookies, crackers and cheese and dreaming about what would be under the tree when I woke up. And I would fall asleep watching the white lights sparkle against the brass cherubs, with Nana playing with my hair.

She made all of it so perfect that I was always a little sad on Christmas day. Not because I didn't get what I wanted or anything to do with the gifts...but because what made that holiday special was over for another year....

With Christmas rapidly approaching it made me curious how everyone else celebrated... and what makes it special for you.. if you do celebrate?