Holidays at my house.

MUST BUY ALL THE THINGS!!!! GRRRR...

So with all this hullabaloo going on about Black Friday extending into Thursday this year to allow for more shopping madness, it kind of makes me angry. What is wrong with America? Maybe stuff like this happens in other countries too, but I live here so I'm complaining about here. America you are ridiculous. I love you, but sometimes I don't like you. Wasn't the first Thanksgiving about sitting down to eat and celebrate the successful harvest by not working or doing anything crazy?

Thanksgiving happens to be one of my favorite holidays. Maybe it's the food that makes me love it, or maybe it's the fact that my mom and I can be found pulling out 500 piece puzzles and attempting to do one of them throughout an entire day. I don't know what it is exactly, but I know what it isn't. And it isn't BLACK FRIDAY.

Black Friday is a grotesque display of how awful Americans can be. I love America, but I don't like certain things that are becoming the norm.

BLACK FRIDAY IS DUMB.

I mean that, and yes I wrote it like I was yelling. I want to stand in the middle of the mall like a crazy protester with signs and say, "GO HOME AND STOP BEING SO DUMB."

I know that Black Friday is a great day to get great deals. But why do you need to go through all that drama to get all that crap? Whatever happened to making memories with your family that don't involve shopping malls during the holiday season? I mean do people even know what the holiday season is about anymore? Or is the holiday season now just about shopping for new crap? New plastic pieces of technology to fill our brains with nonsense and kill our ability to concentrate, new clothes that look great, but only until fashion designers say in 3 months it is out of style, new crap that will sit on shelves in your home and turn you into a hoarder?

Don't get me wrong, I love technology. It's an amazing invention. I love giving and receiving gifts. I love buying new things that I need and want. But I refuse to stand in a huge line like a ravenous wolf after my prey when I buy things. I HATE STORES FROM NOVEMBER TO JANUARY. It's like normal humans turn into salivating dogs at the ring of Pavlov's bell when the fourth Friday in November rolls around. Wasn't it just last year or the year before that a woman started pepper-spraying the crowd around her to keep them away from what she wanted to buy? WHO EVEN DOES THAT?

I seriously can't stand it. STOP BUYING THINGS YOU CRAZY WOLVES! If you can't be nice, and mentally stable during November and December, you're not allowed outside of your home.

Acting out the Christmas Story from the Bible.

I miss being oblivious to Black Friday. I was young enough that I didn't know that stuff was going on. I just knew that Christmas time was magic. Christmas lights were everywhere, the tree decorated in our home, we always had a fire going in our fireplace because it's cold out, and the air gets crisp and cold. My church youth group would deliver gifts to and visit with the elderly of our neighborhoods. Every time I would come home from school my mom would have a spice candle burning, and christmas music on the stereo. She would make chocolate mint treats, and we would prepare for the most magical night of the year. A night that would never allow me to sleep, because my stomach would be too full of butterflies to be able to sleep.

Usually that night of angst was preceded by a fancy candlelit dinner. This is my favorite Christmas tradition. Every Christmas Eve my mom cooks a nice ham or something fancy and we eat by candelight. Usually the candles would get blown out half way through and the lights would be back on... having 5 brothers makes for some little pyro-maniacs at the table messing with the fire. It was fun while it lasted though! Then we'd all read the Christmas story from the Bible and get ready for bed. This is still the best memory for me of Christmas. It's still magical to me because I crave family time during the holiday season.

I am so excited for this weekend. I can't wait for the feast, the family, and the Friday off work (but it won't involve anything black). I am also very excited for Christmas this year! It is my first Christmas living with Justin and our 3rd since we got together. Sure we kind of have no surprises this year for Christmas, but that's because we both needed some things so we just bought them for each other. But who cares, I don't love Christmas for the gifts. I love it for the magic-ness that it brings. I can't wait for us to start our own traditions and have many more holiday seasons to come. We already set up our tree and it's cute! It's small, and sparsely decorated, but every ornament is from a place we've been or something we've done. It's a sentimental tree that will get more additions to it as our lives progress.

What about you? What are your favorite holiday season traditions, memories, or crazy stories?