Country Christmas in the Suburbs

I can hardly believe it’s that time of year again.

Time to pull out the Christmas bins and deck the halls. To make our cozy home in the suburbs resemble a country Christmas.

Time to put on the Christmas carols and sing sweetly about our sweet Lord and Savior’s birth.

Time to gather with family and friends and break bread.

I always look forward to this time of year. I’m typically one of those people who starts to sing Jingle Bell Rock in July. It’s all I can do to not listen to Christmas tunes twelve months of the year.

And the Christmas movies.

Oh the Christmas movies.

This year though, I’m feeling a little weary.

It’s taken a bit longer for the Christmas Spirit to catch on.

Sure we’ve go the trees up and the house is decorated. We’ve even been listening to Christmas carols and watching Christmas movies.

But I’m just not quite feeling it yet. The joy of the season seems distant.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been on high speed, work-until-I-drop for the last several months. Maybe it’s because it’s still unseasonably warm here. Maybe it’s because we’re not hosting Christmas this year because it’s my sister’s turn.

Who knows.

But I am sure the feelings will come. The feelings of joy and gratitude and celebration.

In the meantime, I’ll cozy up by the (electric) fireplace with my family and watch the holiday classics. I’ll bake Christmas treats (not cookies though ’cause I can’t bake cookies to save my life) and listen to Christmas carols.

And I’ll read and re-read the Christmas story as told by the great doctor, Luke, in Luke 2:1-20.

As I struggle with being weary myself, I encourage you, if you’re just not feeling it, if you’ve had losses this year that make Christmas oh-so-emotionally hard, if money is tight and you can barely afford dollar store decorations…remember it’s not all about the decor or the presents.

It’s about a little baby boy that came down from heaven some two thousand years ago to bring us life.

I know that if we all focus on that good news – the feelings will surely come.

xo,
Shannon

P.S. We’ll be back with another home tour on Friday. Make sure you come back because for this one we’ve really changed things up in our house!

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Now it’s time to take a tour of my Canadian blogging friends’ gorgeous homes. Come back each day to see a new set of home tours from Monday to Thursday this week.