This is worst than Christmas Eve

I have never been one to love anticipation. As a child my grandmother helped this by sending elaborate advent calendars for Christmas. Each day we would move the mouse in my mother's traditional advent calendar. It had no bells, no whistles and no gifts. To us kids it was merely the way we kept track of what day it was in order to use my grandmother's advent calendar.

It was no run of a mill advent calendar either. It came in a long rectangle box that had hidden small boxes that dropped like a pez dispenser for each day. Some days there would be money or tick tacks stuck in the small box BUT OTHER DAYS... there would be a number written by hand on a small folded piece of paper. That was a jack pot day. It meant that the gift intended for that day was too big to fit in the box. We would rush to the large sacks sent with our names written in sharpie over the stomach of a snowman and find that number tucked inside. There were small gifts and large gifts, heavy and light. All wrapped in tissue paper- each person their own color to ensure there was no mix up.

SERIOUSLY. Is there any question why I hate to wait??? I blame all adult issues on this annual process of our Christmas count down.

The house "arrives" this week. The week of my birthday where I am usually looking in sock drawers and hidden closet corners for any trace of my birthday gift because have I mentioned that I hate to wait? My husband as caught on and now just has all gifts locked up at work but I still have a need to at least try and discover the mystery. I have no interest in my birthday this year because the next day, our house arrives. It will be sitting on our land- EEAKKKK! And for sure that is something I won't find in a hidden closet corner.

How am I managing with this anticipation you ask? I have started my own little advent calendar. I started with a list of wishes for each new space and have started crossing off the little trinkets and sparkles that will help make our space our own. Delivered to my office. There may not be a burlap bag with a felt snowman but there sure is the sense that something big is coming.

I know it all sounds terribly materialistic but I should mention that gifts weren't the best thing on Christmas Eve. It was our big Italian family gathering, eating and singing praise for the birth of Jesus. It was the one night where we laughed until we crashed then woke up and did it all over again Christmas morning. I can't wait for the holidays and laughter to fill our new home!