I have always loved Christmas better than any other time of the year....but....don't you all think that each year can be a bit different? For years, I loved it and started early preparations (to the amazement of most)mostly up until my divorce. Nothing has ever been the same since. Each year I do my best and try so hard to make the best of it but it's nothing for me to be driving along in my car and hear a Christmas song and melt into tears. I guess the best way to describe it is bittersweet. My love for it is still very much there but as life changes and more loss comes and goes, it is more bittersweet than ever and I suspect many feel this way. On a lighter note, when I lived in a parsonage (hubby was the senior pastor) we lived across our cul de sac from the young associate pastor and his wife. She and I had "races" each year to see who would decorate first. The "competition" got really intense as the years went by and she ALWAYS won! One year, and sadly it was to be our last holiday there (though I didn't know it then), I was determined! I waited until they left early one morning and knew they'd be gone until evening....I decked that place out like a gingerbread house....tree, lights blinking, trees blinking and waited for them to arrived home and s-l-o-w-l-y round the driveway by our house. I was waving in the picture window! Needless to say, I got a congratulatory call immediately. It was October 13th!!! We were the talk of the church (and I really don't ever want to know ALL of their comments)!