The Long Way Home

Okay, the count is now down to TEN days till Christmas. My memory for today isn't really one memory, but a combination of many. Or really I just want to share with you an old family tradition that I love. My family loves Christmas lights, who wouldn't right? Not only do we love putting up tons of lights on our own house, but we always loved going for drives to look at them too. Most often our yearly lights drive would occur on a Sunday sometime in December, after a visit to Grandma B in Centerville. Instead of going home on the freeway we would go the backroad, or as we called it "the long way". It's really not that much longer of a drive, but when we made it a Christmas light drive, it became much longer. We'd spend an hour or so in neighborhoods on the way home looking at lights and singing Christmas songs together. My favorite parts of this tradition were the houses that had the "special" decorations we would notice. The house with the HUGE pine in the front yard, completely covered in lights. But especially the word NOEL on the side of the hill. We spent some great times as a family on those drives. They don't' happen as much anymore, and usually not for as long either, but they will always be a special Christmas memory for me.