As it is for many people, December is one of my favorite months. Sure, December can get a little stressful as we bounce from activity to activity and try to wrap up the first semester of school, but for the most part, those activities are fun and festive, and so many once-a-year things happen that it’s impossible to not get excited. Here are a few of the ones I’m most excited for this year:

1. Christmas break. Duh, right? (And before you get all snarky about how teachers have it easy with their time off, please remember that I also make literally half as much money as the average person with my level of education, mmkay?)

2. Seeing family. My parents and grandparents live 6+ hours away, so we don’t get to see each other very often. I’m excited for some quality time and catching up.
Here is a picture of my mom and me that is clearly not from Christmas, but this post needed a picture here.

3. Snowshoeing. This one goes with #2, as we generally only snowshoe when we visit my parents. But maybe we can squeeze in another adventure sometime over break. And maybe some of my blogger friends who snowshoe way more often than I do will want to take me other times this winter (hint, hint).

4. Secret Santa at work. This is just a little thing, but I enjoy it so much every year. We do our exchanges the week before finals — the week that we’re desperately trying to get kids to pay attention to anything . They’re grumpy, we’re grumpy… and a little gift from a Secret Santa makes for a nice little pick-me-up.

5. Cookie-baking festivus/90’s music dance party with Sarah. We did this last year, and it was so. much. fun. that we have to do it again!

6. Christmas concerts. I love going to the high school band and choir concerts, especially at Christmas. They’re just so festive, and it’s fun to see kids shining in a different setting than I usually see them.

7. College field trip. I arranged a college-tour field trip for my seniors, and I’m excited/nervous to see how it goes. I hope they get something out of it!

8. Christmas movies. Elf, It’s A Wonderful Life, Fred Clause, Peanuts Christmas, Rudolph… from the classics to the not-so-classic, I love all the movies, especially when I watch them with a mug of cocoa in my hand.

9. Christmas music. I know some people hate it, but I like a lot of Christmas music. And if you wondered, this is my all-time favorite Christmas song:

10. Time to write. I feel like my blog posts… when I even post… have been lacking substance since school started. I’m hoping that over Christmas break, I can take the time to sit down and put some thought into what I write and make it worthwhile. I also intend to write a few letters to legislators over break, but this blog is not for politics, so I won’t get into that now.

I could list more things, but 10 is the magic blog number, right?

What are you looking forward to this December?

Favorite Christmas movie? Song?