Christmas Time's a' comin'!

And I wish I was going home (to Nova Scotia). Honestly, travel to Canada this time of year is a pain, but it's this time of year that I am the most homesick. Combine that with having a baby on the way, well, let's be honest, I just want my Mommy and Daddy! Hopefully next year, if we have the means and a baby with a good temperment, we'll be headed that way.

THIS year, however, we're here in K-town for the holidays, and I can't complain. Tennessee Christmases, though usually green and balmy, are growing on me.

We finally got our tree up and decorated tonight. I started thinking about how this time next year, we'll have our baby girl here with us as we go through our Christmas decorating rituals. Brad and I were talking about what traditions we've started to put into place over the past 7 years and how fun it will be to build on those with our little girl.

It is a sweet scene to imagine:

- Rudolph on the tv, with the volume turned down.
- Christmas music playing in the background, most notably Raffi's Christmas songs and my Dad's Christmas music.
- Cookies baking in the oven, even if they are Tollhouse. They were baked in MY kitchen. That totally counts as "homemade". Maybe someday, I will master my great-grandmother's gumdrop cake.
- The dogs sniffing through all of the Christmas decoration boxes and trying to squirm away from us as we adorn them with Christmas hats and headbands.
- Brad and me working as a kick-butt team to get the tree decorated.

I'm sure as the years go on, we will add to these rituals and traditions, and we'll have 2 little hands getting into EVERYTHING! I can honestly say that I can't wait.

Here we are getting ready for our last Christmas as a family of 2 people and 3 dogs.