.the goose is getting fat

Christmas is coming,

the goose is getting fat

Please put a penny in the old man's hat

if you haven't got a penny,

a half-penny would do,

if you haven't got a half-penny,

God Bless You!

I know it's early, but this is the week that I have begun to get especially obnoxiously excited about the Christmas season. Small things like Paula Deen's tweet about the beginning of pie season, booking my flight home, seeing egg nog in the grocery stores, and finally a chill in the air (anytime now, Nashville?) just start the flutter of excitement in my stomach, and I feel five years old again. When I was five, I knew it was my parents and not Santa Claus, but that didn't make Christmas any less magical. Now, I'm not one to go ahead and set up a tree until after Thanksgiving (let's do this thing properly), but I do love when the year starts it's downhill slide into the holidays. As a violin teacher, I have been in the throes of planning a Christmas recital with the other teachers at the shop, so I've been teaching Christmas carols for a month already- but this is the week that it has started to hit me.

I think this December, I'll do what I did last December: a picture-a-day photoblog counting down the days until christmas. This year it will be more exciting though! Right before Christmas, I will be on the Celebrity Equinox visiting two of my dearest friends from my cruise contract last year - I haven't seen them since October 2010, and I am very excited about it! So instead of last year, posting the heavy snow and my lonely Christmas tree in Minnesota, I will be posting pictures of beaches, Cayman Islands, Belize, Mexico, Costa Rica.

But what I'm most excited about is my flight to Maryland on the 23rd, opening the presents from the aunts and uncles as soon as I get there, Christmas Eve going to all the services, playing the violin in the church I grew up in, waking up on Christmas morning (not too early, but still early enough) and doing the same things we've done every year: hiding the stockings, eating cinnamon buns and listening to whatever music anyone got as a present, lunching with Poppop, dining with the same families, ever growing.

The traditions are what I love, knowing that no matter how far I go, I can come back on Christmas, and even though we've lived in the same house for over 20 years, they still find new places to hide our stockings!

What's your favorite bit about the holiday?