The friend who saved Christmas

Everyone who knows me knows that I love, love, LOVE Christmas. I love finding the perfect gift, baking lots of treats, seeing the lights, getting my decorations out, going to parties and everything else that the season brings. I always try to get my shopping done by early fall at the latest so I have lots of time to enjoy this time with friends and family. I've even been known to go to the mall on Christmas Eve just because I enjoy the hustle and bustle even though I normally hate crowds.

This holiday season has been radically different for me. The day to day of taking care of Max and generally not being "plugged in" to what day it is most of the time have meant that I didn't really do Christmas this year. We didn't get a tree, unpack any decorations, do any baking, send out cards, etc. I hadn't even wrapped anything until a marathon wrapping session yesterday.

I was telling our friends Is and Chris about my general lack of holiday spirit and how I just didn't feel like myself this year at brunch two Sundays ago during the blizzard.

This past Friday night, Is and her partner G-Man dropped in for a quick visit before they left for the holidays. They brought a tin of amazing baked goodies, homemade flavoured olive oil in a beautiful bottle, and a jar of homemade dulce de leche (G-Man is a gourmet chef par excellence and this stuff is pure heaven. I was pouring it on just about everything the last time he made it.).

But Is and G-Man brought one very special gift for me - my very own Christmas tree.

A tiny, perfect tree with coloured mini lights and beautiful little ornaments. Max's first tree. I'm tearing up as I write this post with the tree twinkling in the background. It smells wonderful too. I put the new ornament that my mum gave us (super cute with little snowmen named John, Holly and Max on it) at the top. The base is covered in presents from John's family in Winnipeg that we will open tomorrow morning before we head over to my mum and Auntie Karen's place for the day.

With apologies to Santa and everyone else who has ever given me a wonderful present, this is probably the most thoughtful and amazing Christmas gift anyone has ever given me. It sounds cheesy but everything feels OK again with this little tree in the house. I have a spring in my step that I didn't have a few days ago. I've had a wonderful few days and I'm looking forward to spending tomorrow with family and friends.

Here is a photo of Is, Max and our tree:



Is, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for saving Christmas for me. You are a gem.

Hugs,
Holly

A few tidbits about my other holiday heroes:

- BIG PROPS to our friend Kerry who babysat Max on Saturday night so John and I could enjoy an evening out with my family at Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe Christmas show. Kerry was a pro. Thanks to Auntie Melody too for starting a wonderful family tradition!

- Thanks to Renee for a great new ginger cookie recipe. I don't have a lot of time to bake so this easy and fabulous recipe was awesome to make this past week. I cranked the Christmas mix on the IPod (hugs to John who put all of my Christmas CDs on the Ipod) and really enjoyed baking. We finished off the whole batch of cookies in less than 48 hours!