It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like . . . Charlotte’s First Christmas!

Sparkly!

I love Christmas. And this year, I’m already having a blast, sharing it with my little girl.

One major advantage of having a January baby is that she’s old enough to interact with all the glittery Christmas hoopla. One major disadvantage is that she can now crawl and wants to travel over to the tree to chew on ornaments, bang on Christmas gifts (my apologies to all of you who receive gifts from us—they’re going to look a little . . . worn), gnaw on tree lights, and tug on Christmas tree branches. Last Saturday, we braved cold wind to find our perfect tree. Well, after failure at two cut-your-own-tree lots, we went to a nursery and found our tree. At home, we blasted Christmas music, turned on the fire (yes, it’s remote-controlled—don’t judge us), and set up the tree. As one of my favorite Christmas songs came on, I surveyed the scene in front of me: Tree up, ornaments littered around, and Chris and Charlotte on the floor in front of the fireplace, tangled up in Christmas lights. And I’m such a sap, I got all choked up and a tad teary-eyed. Chris laughed at me and asked what was wrong. “Nothing!” I said. “It just sort of hit me all at once. I feel like I’ve been waiting for and working toward this moment for years and years.” I probably made no sense to Chris, and I can’t really explain it to myself much better. Although I have always loved Christmastime, I feel like the past several years have been practice rounds until I could share it with my own kid. Of course, in reality the past years have not been practice rounds—I’m certain of that, because Christmas is Christmas—but in the back of my head, whenever I saw a particularly pretty decked out house, heard a spectacular version of “O Holy Night,” or found cute Disney character gift wrap, I felt a happy sense of anticipation of someday getting to share the feeling of Christmastime with my future kids. I remember the sheer joy and excitement I felt during the Christmas season as a kid—spinning around like maniacs with my little brother to Emmylou Harris’s “Christmas Time Is Coming,” church decorations, cheesy blinking tree toppers, going to the Christmas tree lot with Dad while he grumbled about the crappy saw while cutting down our tree, and so on.

I so, so want Charlotte to look back on her childhood Christmases as remember how stinkin’ happy the season used to make her feel. And by the looks of it, as long as the Christmas lights and wrapping paper hold out, she'll be a happy girl for a long time!