Merry Christmas to you!

In honor of Christmas, today's Top Five Friday will be my top five Christmas memories. Here they are in no particular order.


1. My first "married" Christmas: Our first Christmas will always have a special place in my heart. It was so much fun opening presents together, getting our own little tree and buying our own lights, and combining family traditions. His family watches Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer every year, and I had never seen it. My family watches It's a Wonderful Life every year, and he had never seen that (a crime!), so it was fun merging our Christmas movie-watching traditions as well:)

decorating our first tree

2. Getting my very first American Girl Doll: Like any child of the 80's and 90's, I desperately wanted my very own American Girl Doll. I was only 7, but I can still clearly remember opening a present to find Samantha inside. There's a picture of me somewhere where I'm throwing open the box and you can tell that I'm squealing with delight. I should say, though ... that the year my parents surprised us with a go-cart deserves honorable mention! It was one of those so-awesome-you-wouldn't-even-think-to-ask-for-it presents, and none of my siblings or I saw it coming. We were THRILLED!

3. Getting Buddy: A few years ago, my little sister had been wanting her very own dog very badly, and my parents decided to surprise her with one. My mom and I went to pick out a Golden Retriever for her, and I wrapped up a box TV show-style where you wrap the box and the top to the box individually so that the recipient can take the top right off, and we put the puppy inside. It was sooooo much fun being part of the surprise, and seeing her little face when she opened that box and saw the puppy was priceless.


4. Christmas at 1312: 1312 was the address of my first apartment with Claire and Jillian, and we all felt very grown up because we had a Christmas tree, threw a sophisticated little party for our friends, and had our very own "Christmas morning" where we opened presents, broke out the camcorder, and read the Bible story of Jesus' birth from Luke. But we also listened to "What Christmas Means to Me", as well as the Mariah Carey and Amy Grant Christmas CD's non-stop.

hauling in our Christmas tree

5. Singing Lesson Trips: I took voice lessons for about 5 years, up until I went to college. The voice lessons were about an hour away from where we lived, so my mom would always drive me there once a week before I got my license. This was always a special time for us to visit and be together, just the two of us, but it was always extra special at Christmas time. We'd leave an hour or two early, and we'd go to all the cute little boutiques downtown. We'd listen to Christmas music, and I'd read us stories from this sweet little book called Christmas in My Heart that would make us both cry. When I got the opportunity to star in a Christmas Opera at the Opera festival, I actually had to stay in a town about an hour away for a little over a week because I was rehearsing most of the day, every day. My mom went with me, and for 2 of those nights we even stayed at the fancy old historic hotel. The Christmas season always brings back memories of those special times with my Mama:)