I love Christmas

This is my very first non-retail Christmas really since my early college days (my college days span a lot of my adult life). And I am excited. I feel a surge of energy hitting me, and the house is getting organized and I am making things and doing things and looking forward to a bit of time off at Christmas to enjoy my home and my husband.
Part of me wishes I could visit my parents and try to re-create some childhood feelings of Christmas, like snowy cold with toasty blanket cures. But I also feel like this is the first year I can really live the christmas dream on my own, with out the crazed life of working retail, getting through finals and trying to bring comfort and joy to loved ones. And the bizarre bareness of Arizona in the winter has grown on me over my ten years here. That first hard out of school working in the mall Christmas, driving home on Christmas Eve through a previously normal neighborhood of ranch style houses, now transformed into magical Christmas land with luminaries lining the street. They only put them out one night. It made me cry.
I took these pictures around Christmas last year. Snowless, brown grass, people playing soccer. I think I'll keep it.