Jeepers, guys, it's cold outside!

I love the Christmas season so much. Of course, for me that season begins November 1st and usually carries over to New Year's, but that's only because it's one of the few things I really can't get enough of. Even the commercialization of the holiday really doesn't bother me because it means I get to saturate myself with holly and firs and gold ribbon wrapping the whole thing up in a bow.

But at the same time, I find myself hesitant to talk about Christmas. It's almost as if, for me, it lessens the holiday somehow. I don't know why that is, but, well, there's a magic that dims a little with words. Mmph. I was trying so hard to avoid being maudlin, but I get SO SENTIMENTAL during the Christmas season it is absolutely impossible! Dudes, when my school put up their lights on the main street and I drove down it for the first time at night, I ALMOST CRIED it was so beautiful.

One of the worst things about living in Alabama is that there's so rarely snow on Christmas. It just never gets cold enough, so when the sky does manage to shed a little dandruff, none of it sticks. Still, there's this one memory I have--it was Christmas Eve and I was maybe ten or twelve. We always go to my grandparents' church for the service and--I'm going to digress a little here, but it used to be a very old-fashioned service. The sanctuary was long and narrow and full of wonderful straight-backed pews that were stained a dark cherry, and the minister wore the formal robes and we sang the most traditional of traditional carols. Then there were the hundreds of poinsettias that lined the aisles and the long cream tapers in every window and behind the pulpit--and the best part of the whole night was the end of the service, when everyone was given a personal candle in a little paper saucer to catch the wax, and we'd sing Silent Night to a lone guitar as we filed outside into the chilly parking lot.

One year, it snowed.

I wish there was some way I could describe it without ruining it. I just remember coming outside and blinking a little because something had got on my eyelashes, and then my mom told me to look up, and--well. There it was. Of course it didn't stick, but that was so terribly unimportant because it was Christmas Eve and I was singing Silent Night with my family while it snowed.

Um.

And now to relieve that unrelenting nostalgia, a Christmas horror story! Once, when I was in elementary school, I wanted to sleep out on the couch so I could catch Santa. My mom said no because--and I will remember this until I get Alzheimer's--she and my dad "did stuff" out there. Now, with the benefit of hindsight and a dozen years on my version 1.0, I realize that they were playing Santa and I was too light a sleeper for them to get away with it.

At the time, though, I thought she meant she and my dad had sex on the couch.

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GAH. EVEN TYPING IT GIVES ME THE HEEBIE-JEEBIES. a;slkdfhalskdfhlkuhas;dfij fffffffffgross.

HERE, HAVE A TERRIFYING SANTA