25GoC: Madison Scott + contest

What Christmas Is To Me:

By Madison C. Scott

1. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
   The Greatest Gift mankind has ever received, the Savior of the world.


2. Christmas is Santa Claus.
   I live with my parents and seven siblings ranging in age from eighteen to five. Christmas Eve finds the fireplace doors opened just a crack, cookies, hot chocolate, and a note on the Santa plate by the hearth, and kids determined to hear Santa’s reindeer on the roof.


3. Christmas is family.
   We seem to have a lot of family time throughout December. Someone’s always in the kitchen baking cookies or making fudge and in this house, that’s an ordeal that requires no less than two helpers. The Christmas movies are out, and on, and we’ll wander through, catching our favorite parts. Keeping secrets, hanging the garland just right, decorating the tree, baking for gifts, everything has to have the whole family’s participation for it to be right. My mother’s family has a Christmas party every year, tree, presents, dinner and all, along with grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins, cousins that I know are cousins but I’m not sure how, we all show up. Christmas day means my grandparents, uncle, cousins, and the occasional odd boyfriend/fiancé of a cousin come up to the house for presents and sweet stuff.


4. Christmas is tradition.
   I love tradition. It’s a reminder that no matter how old you get, or how much things change, some things will always be the same. From decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving, to watching A Christmas Story a dozen times, to daddy reading “The Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve, to the fudge recipe, and punch, and chocolate-chip-pecan pie, everything about the Christmas Season is centered around tradition. That makes me very happy.


5. Christmas is giving.
   I prefer to make the gifts I give, I think it makes them more special, and I’m not a big fan of shopping. I don’t like crowds, I don’t like trying things on, and I can usually find a much better (in my opinion) way to spend a day. Once a year, though, my grandmother and I have a Christmas shopping day. We get lost in the mall, visit the toy store two or three times because we forgot something, have lunch, and get most of her shopping out of the way. I love doing that.


6. Christmas is music.
   My sister is playing carols on the piano, Christmas music is on the radio, Bing Crosby’s “Silver Bells” is stuck in my head on repeat, somewhere in the house someone is singing “Mele Kalikimaka” and won’t stop. Daddy’s singing Elvis: “I’ll have a bl-bl-bl-blue, blue, blue, bluuuueee Christmas.” It’s everywhere.


7. Christmas is on the television.
   It isn’t quite Christmas without the Christmas movies. A Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, White Christmas, Polar Express, Ernest Saves Christmas, Tim Allen’s Santa Clause movies, Rudolph and all the classic stop-motion movies, and Elf, to name a few.


8. And last but not least, Christmas is that warm fuzzy feeling.
   The warm fuzzy feeling when your family is all together, when you hear the cold wind outside and are warm inside, the tired, content feeling, the indescribable happiness. Christmas is love.

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Madison Scott celebrates Christmas with her family in Tennessee, where the trees are occasionally still green, the grass occasionally still needs mown, and the temperature is occasionally 50 degrees on Christmas Eve. The closest she’s ever been to a white Christmas was the one year there were snow flurries, but a Tennessee Christmas is all she ever wants to experience, with or without the snow. Check out her website at www.madisonscott.webs.com and see what mischief she’s been getting into lately.

In addition to that wonderful guest post, Madison Scott has so kindly donated 2 copies of her book, Reba, for giveaway!

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Thanks so much

Jill