I should be planning our Thanksgiving dinner right now but all I can do is think about Christmas.  It doesn’t help that several houses in my neighborhood already have their Christmas lights and trees up.  One even left their pumpkins outside mixed into the Christmas decor!  I mean, do we call that Christgiving?  Or Thanksmas? 

My Christmas dreaming started earlier than normal this year.  Some of that has to do with the fact that this will be my baby grands first Christmas and I’m picturing all the photos I want to take of her already.  But these days, I also think we are all looking for something to bring a glimmer of hope into our lives with the current pandemic.  When the local radio station started their Christmas music rotation at the beginning of November, I tuned in.  Usually I hold off until after Thanksgiving but there were a few days in early November where I just needed to hear those songs while driving in my car and I also needed to sing along.

Then there’s my love of Hallmark.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…I blame my mother for this!  When we lived in Westmont, Illinois, she started to work at a little Hallmark shop called Sentiments and Sweets.  That was my introduction to Hallmark.  I remember getting off the school bus from high school near her shop to walk to my afternoon part-time job at the nearby White Hen Pantry convenience store.  I would always stop by so she knew I had gotten off the bus.  Then I would reach around the front counter display of Fannie May candies, and grab a chocolate mint meltaway before heading to my job. That little shop was always so cute and I loved going there to visit my mother and see the displays she had created, especially at Christmas.

It also doesn’t help that I’m constantly drawn to the Hallmark channel and their non-stop Christmas movies.  We all know the storyline of those movies, right?  Woman goes from the big city back to her little home town for some family emergency, bumps into the guy she used to love, they reconnect in an unusual way – like they have to save Christmas or something, they drink tons of hot cocoa, have a snowball fight and THEN…there’s THE misunderstanding.  And 6 minutes before the end of the movie, it all gets resolved and they live happily ever after.  We know all the formula and yet we still watch. 

 

Hallmark’s Home and Family show is also high on my list of guilty pleasures making me think about Christmas.  I find myself taking photos of the tv screen to remember décor or crafts I want to try, or a recipe I want to make.  Then yesterday I found their Countdown to Christmas book at Target and naturally, I had to buy it!  My Sunday afternoon plans are to start reading that book on my deck.  I should probably make some hot cocoa in keeping with the Hallmark theme, shouldn’t I?

Meanwhile, our Thanksgiving this year will be small and social distanced…just me, my hubby, my son and daughter (who live here) and my mother.  We will have the traditional foods as always, just not as much.  Although my mother has already informed me that I should make enough for left-overs!  Of course, I will comply with her request because Thanksgiving leftovers are my favorite too!  Then on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I will begin my Christmas decorating while I will watch Hallmark Christmas movies, listen to Christmas music and sing along.