Around this time of year, Mr. Gray and I–mostly I–start talking about Christmasday. This is quite different from Christmas day, but equally important in my mind. Christmasday is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when we cut down our Christmas tree(s) and get our home and our hearts ready for the Christmas season.
I started thinking about how this started, as it is something we started in our marriage, not something either of us did growing up. It was fun to reflect on our first married Christmas and how it fell together to become a tradition.
Slightly prior to Thanksgiving that first year, Annie and I made a quick trip to New York. Everything was decorated for Christmas. Something about Macy’s and the Saks and Bergdorf Goodman windows had my Christmas spirit in hyper drive. I couldn’t wait to get home and decorate–but not before Thanksgiving, of course!
At the time, A&M and t.u. were playing on Friday (it was before it was moved back to Thanksgiving Day), and Mr. Gray and I spent that Saturday in Waco with Papa and that side of the family. On the way home Sunday, we headed to the Christmas tree farm to cut down our first (ever) Christmas tree. We did our decorating and called it a day. We had lights on our little condo in College Station and our nativity scenes spread throughout our home.
The following year, I remember making it a point to cut down our tree that Sunday and do our decorating. I wanted it to be our family day dedicated to the Christmas season. I have no idea when we actually started calling it Christmasday, but sometimes that’s the way it goes with traditions.
Through the years, it’s grown and changed some, as has our home and our family, but it’s always been Christmasday for us. The time we get our hearts ready for the coming Lord and the season of giving. We’ve already mapped out our Christmas scheme for this year, and I can’t wait to go get tree(s)–we’re still not sure on one or two–Sunday! 
