Celebrate the Christmas season with That Artsy Reader Girl and her bookish friends! 

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Merry Christmas Eve! Boy, this month sure has flown! I can’t believe tomorrow is Christmas Day. There’s just something about Christmas that makes me all nostalgic and look back on my life, particularly my childhood Christmases. Today I’m sharing a few pictures of my Christmases as a child. I grew up a military brat, so I’ve lived in lots of places. My mom and little sister have always been my best friends because we’ve really been the only constants in each other’s lives!

My Christmas Memories

 

Top left: My mom, little sister, and I have always loved baking Christmas cookies together each year. Here we are together in our kitchen living on base in Monterey, California. I wonder which cookies we were making in this picture!

Top right: This is my mom, my Oma, my little sister, and me in front of our Christmas tree in our house in Monterey again. I only wore skirts and dresses as a child and never wore a pair of pants until I moved to Louisiana (Louisiana winters are colder than California winters!) when I was 9 years old. That was quite an adjustment. lol. I’ve always loved dressing in festive colors at Christmastime!

Bottom Left: My first Christmas! We were living in Misawa, Japan at this time and my mom dressed me in my cute little dress and red tights for church. The picture is a little too small to really notice, but she also glued a red bow to my head…

Bottom Middle: My little sister and I loved throwing the wrapping paper up in the air like snow as kids. lol. This picture is in our Louisiana house. I went through a Tweety Bird phase, and this is my Tweety nightshirt.

Bottom Right: Every Christmas my family and I sit in a circle and take turns opening our presents, one by one. Here we are in our house in Arnold, Maryland. I loved this robe soooo much! The body was like a sweatshirt and the arms were like a cozy plaid button-up. We still have those same stockings, which I have always loved. They’re made out of yarn and knitted like a sweater. They hold a LOT of stuff.

What’s your favorite Christmas memory?

 

Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays (aside from Christmas which, if you know me at all, you know it’s my favorite time of the year). I love getting the family together and eating tons of yummy food. My family is very small, and it has gotten smaller over the last few years. My two grandpas, my uncle, my parents, and my little sister and I will gather around the table in a few hours to eat turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (my favorite), corn soufflé, cranberry salad, rolls, and sparkling apple grape juice. I’ll be decorating the table in with a gold table cloth, black hurricane lanterns, fall foliage, glittery pumpkins, and a million tea light and pillar candles. One of my grandpas will probably fall asleep at the table, and the other will tell us stories of his time in WWII. We will be silly and laugh and the cat might try to take a flying leap onto the table and destroy it all, but she’ll chicken out and fall asleep on the heating vent instead. We’re all pretty private and don’t like to get emotional, so we will spend the day reflecting internally on the things we’re thankful for. This is what Thanksgiving is to me. I hope your day is filled with love, food, memories, and family.

What is Thanksgiving to you? What’s your favorite thing on the menu tonight? What are you thankful for?