Most people do not understand...

Most people do not understand the true meaning of Christmas. I fondly remember helping my mom bake Christmas cookies, wrapping presents, trimming the tree, and waiting so impatiently for the big day to arrive. That was back when I was a child growing up in a small town. It was the little special things that made Christmas special to me. Because we lived far enough away to make going to a shopping mall inconvenient, there were a lot of Christmas presents that were hand-made. We would come to Fargo one time prior to Christmas and buy most of the gifts, but my mom would still make some too. She would sew my two young nieces Christmas dresses every year. Or she would crochet a scarf and mittens for me. We also didn't have the quantity of gifts back then. If you made a Christmas list, you were fortunate to get one maybe two items on the entire list. And I worked hard on that list, pondering over the JCPenney Christmas catalog every year of what I should ask for. I also wrote to Santa every year and mysteriously received an item from my letter under the tree. I could never figure out how he got in our house, because we didn't have a chimney! Anyway, people seem to forget the "specialness" of Christmas these days. Resorting to buying gift cards in bulk, and buying huge dollar items because they can just put it on their credit card. I've lost interest in Christmas because it's too commercialized with Christmas stuff coming out to the retail stores long before Halloween and Thanksgiving. It's sad to me, maybe not to others, but I miss the little things. Maybe I miss it more since my mom passed away 7 years ago. Someday I hope that Christmas will go back to the way it used to be.