the most wonderful time of the year

Today I went shopping and started to get excited, as my favorite time of year is approaching. I love the year from the week before Thanksgiving when we go to Disneyland straight through to Christmas morning. I like people better, I like the weather being colder (even if it is SoCal cold), I like turkey and buying and decorating the tree, I love listening to friends talk about their plans. I love watching Mike put the lights on the house, and having the kids home from school. I like that we spend an entire month sneaking around, that concludes with an all nighter of wrapping, putting things together and watching the Christmas Story marathon, just so that our kids can have the 4 1/2 minutes of magic that it takes to tear through all of the paper we spent all night putting on..
I'm not so much a Christmas person, after the morning the day itself (other than the tamales) is never great, probably due to exhaustion, but I love the build up. People are nicer, I'm nicer. I put forth an extra effort, that maybe I wish I did more of throughout the year. I think it's the lights, colorful lights make me high.
Katie and the boys just came in from skateboarding, and their hands and faces are cold, and they are dirty and loud, and I love that too.
If anyone actually reads this, and wants to throw up from all this sugar, go right ahead.