Christmas* is my favorite holiday. It’s strange writing about Christmas in April, but then again, I have a Christmas tree still up in my parlor, and I turn the lights on now and then. And I just got done writing a Christmas romance. (It’s my sixth). No other holiday comes close to me.
Christmas lasts an entire season, and that’s one thing I love about it. I get to celebrate from post-Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. It comes when I need it, toward the end of a very busy Fall semester at the college. It livens things up against the leaden skies and frozen ground waiting for snow that doesn’t come till January.
Christmas also has traditions handed down from many cultures (mostly Western) to give it a rich color and flavor. Red and green, silver and gold, touched by Hanukkah blue and white (it is part of the season), ribbons and blown glass ornaments and Della Robbia wreaths (my mother had a particular fondness for them, as do I) and twinkly lights.
We have special Christmas foods from many cultures as well. Pfeffernuse (ginger cookies) and springerle (anise cookies) from Germany, Mexican wedding cakes/Russian tea cakes, sugar cut-out cookies, Christmas goose, plum pudding, KFC (in Japan) …
Christmas remains my favorite holiday, even though I’m too old for Santa. But given I write about a secret society of Santas, am I really too old?
*I am talking about the secular parts of Christmas here. I am of a “spiritual but not religious” bent, best described by “omnist“. Or maybe “panentheist”. I’m not sure. My beliefs are very personal, and I don’t want them hijacked by the “one true religion” crowd.
Words Like Me 