Here comes the Christmas spirit!

Ho ho, only a couple days till the Christmas! :) Unbelievable. Time flies.. (Especially since we have Adelaide with us, it seems.)

Lately (I guess it's every year) I hear all around: there is no Christmas feeling, I haven't gotten the feeling yet.. and so on. Of course, the annual complaining about everything, starting from the pointless gift giving until too much food, and so on.

First, the news: Christmas spirit us up to you! :) Somebody has to create it. Either it's done by other people around you, but if it isn't - it's your job.

Of course, I understand that it's harder to get the Christmas feeling with no snow and weather of Estonian July outside, but lets face it - it's not the first time. I'm too, of course, hoping for snow (and I remember having hoped for snow also, when I was a child, and how it sometimes came only on Christmas Eve, so.. I don't believe in Global Warming), but it's not only about the snow.

Funnily, last two guests we have had.. have said, that we have a Christmas feeling here. :D That it's the first time they have felt it. It's nice to hear.

Also, I don't think you are supposed to get the Christmas spirit much earlier anyway. :) It's not USA here, where they get a tree a whole month before. :D
Christmas feeling comes slowly.. With a little hint of getting the Christmas gifts, with making (or buying) the gingerbread dough, with decorating.. But really, it arrives on 24th of December, when you get and decorate the tree, when the house is filled with warmth and smell of Christmas food, with Christmas songs and love. :)

Probably there is just something "wrong" with me.. :D I like holidays and celebrations. I like those emotions and the special feeling. Either it's just a person I am, or comes from having a happy childhood, I don't know.

But my childhood memories of Christmas are wonderful. Even though my family was not Christian, we still had Christmas (I thought of it as Winter Solstice).
On day of Christmas Eve we would spend all day in the kitchen, fire in the stove, mom baking Christmas buns. Me and sister would help, rolling out the sweet rolls. (Gingerbreads made already in the previous evening..) Father would bring the Christmas tree from the forest. At some point mom would send us out, out of the way, and we would take the very special "Christmas walk" in the sunny, snowy day. Coming back to the smell of fresh buns and decorating the tree. In the evening some relatives, grandmother would arrive and we couldn't already wait for the Santa to come! We had an actual Santa coming for the first years, but later he would call and say that is on a rush, and just dropped the bag on the corner of the road :D or the bag would suddenly appear on the doorsteps, in the most unexpected way. Then we recited poems and sang some songs. I was very happy about the gifts, we had many, but nothing overly fancy or expensive, and I always have been happy about every gift. And on Christmas Day we would again either take a walk outside, all together, or play board games.

About Santa.. I don't know, why people have lost the magical feeling, or why some see it as "lying" to the kids, but I believed in Santa for a long time.. Until I slowly grew up. But the feeling stayed. So we definitely will have Santa coming to our home in years to come..

Christmas for our children will be a bit different than mine used to be.. I always liked Christmas, but it wasn't my favourite holiday. Now, being a Christian, it still has all the same wonderful details, but it has a meaning now too, it has a deeper thought and is truly filled with being happy and thankful - because we are celebrating the day, when God so loved the world and the people, that He sent his only Son to the world, to save us. And the silent, simple magic of the Baby Jesus being born is, what Christmas is all about.. There are great things to come, but for this evening, it's just to be at home, with your loved ones.

Now we sing with our church choir on every Christmas Eve, there is a Christmas concert right before the Christmas Eve service. And after that we come home and have a Christmas Eve, just us. Singing Christmas songs together and exchanging gifts. I love buying gifts, especially when it can be a surprise, love packing them and giving them, and also receiving them.
On the next day we go to visit either mine or Mr. Husband's family, and the other ones for the New Years.

This is how our Christmas looks like.. And thinking about it now, while eating the gingerbreads we baked on Saturday and tangerines (a Christmas food in Estonia), it creates the Christmas Spirit for me..

I hope that Adelaide will have wonderful Christmases, that we can create this feeling for her, so she can later create it for her children as well.. 

And - what is the most important - that the feelings and happiness would be genuine and true. The details are just details, presents are not the most important, neither is the food or the snow. But the true joy and love in the family is the thing, that children feel. And what makes them happy.

Adelaide baking her first gingerbreads with her Godparents

She was enjoying it :)

The result was beautiful and delicious :)

And Adelaide's Godfather totally independently made a gingerbread house :)

Have a nice waiting for Christmas! :)