Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!!!

Oh, I can't hide it. I'm pretty darn excited for Christmas to get here. This time last year I was hard pressed to find even a shred of Christmas spirit. This year, however, it's here and it's all around me and I can't wait, Ican'twaitIcan'twaitIcan'twait!!!!!!!!

I still have to go out today and get a few more gifts. Alex keeps telling me "It's not a competition!" LOL No, it's not. When I have the spirit, I love getting gifts for people. I love figuring what they want and what I think they would like. It's a happy balance between getting them something they've asked for and then something else that I know they would love but would never ask for in a million years. I love the wrapping, the tagging, the bows! All of it. I don't feel the stress that I hear my coworkers and friends talk about. How it's all too much for them. Not me! I love it! Bring it on!

I even baked cookies this year. Twice! Okay, so you get the point. I love Christmas.

Last night, I had a full on Christmas evening. After I made four dozen cookies, I opened one of the DVD's I got for my birthday - Little Women. Now, Little Women, if you don't know, is based on a book by Louisa May Alcott and it's about her life growing up at the time of the Civil War with her father away fighting and her "Marmee" and sisters all left at home to work through their poverty and social beliefs amidst the upper classes of Concord, Mass. It's also about sisters, and love, freedom, and being a woman. And it's a story very near and dear to my heart. I first read the book about 43 years ago and I've read it again every year since then. It's the first book I added to my Kindle. What appealed to me back then still appeals to me now. Back then, there were just not many books that had girls as the lead characters. And certainly none that talked about girls needing to express themselves and to go out into the world and make their mark. The main character, Jo, wants to be a writer and longs to travel and learn and grow and those were and are all things that I have always aspired to. The fact that it is about a family of sisters is not lost on me either. I have four sisters and we are closer than most sisters are, in my opinion. I even live upstairs from one of them now. We talk or text nearly every day and we spend a lot of time together. There is a line in Little Women where the youngest sister, Amy, asks Jo if she loves her friend more than her and Jo answers, "Don't be a beetle. I could never love anyone more than I love my sisters!" And that is so true.

For some reason, I always equate this film and book with Christmas. For sure there is a touching Christmas scene where Mr. Laurie, the wealthy neighbor, gifts Beth, the sister who has been terribly ill, with a new piano. It's a great moment that always make me cry! But other than that this is not  really a Christmas movie yet there it is...doing it's part, getting me all worked up again about the holiday!

There are several versions of Little Women out there. Two that I  like best are the one with Katherine Hepburn as Jo and the newest version from the mid-90s starring Winona Ryder. That's the one I watched last night and, you know what? I think I'm going to pop it back into the DVD player right now!

Yup! I got the Christmas spirit! There's absolutely no hiding it!