Better shot...this is the start of the Season for me. Right after Thanksgiving. I remember when I worked at Belk (the Department store in Cartersville at which I worked part-time for 5 years), one year I got into a verbal disagreement with the store manager about starting the Christmas set up the week after Labor Day. After he less than politely let me know that my name was not Belk, and last time he looked Mason was not the signature on his paycheck, I accepted the fact that Christmas, in the retail world, would never hold the excitement, warmth, and thoughtfulness I felt should be anticipated and worked up to after Thanksgiving. The Friday after Thanksgiving each year found me at the store at 5AM as I truly enjoyed the shoppers waiting at the door at that hour to start their Christmas shopping duty...and felt as they did that the Friday after Thanksgiving is really the start of the Christmas Season...the challenge of getting up and out on that day, the excitement I felt coming from all those folks running through the store, buying 2 or 3 or more things at a time to get those "early bird" prices (and yes they are sometimes REALLY cheap), and the symbiotic relationship that existed between shoppper and me...their joy at the ritual, my joy watching and vicariously living the first, early hours of my Christmas Season. I knew that over the course of the next several days I too would be looking for that "just perfect" gift, getting all the stuff together to send to my Mom and Dad, feeling excited about Hoss coming over and opening his gifts and seeing the smiles and hearing the giggles as he opened up each one...and now, even though I don't work there anymore and would rather take a beating than go out shopping the Friday after Thanksgiving, I still experience the fun when I do venture out to buy presents for those for whom I feel indebted to for the joy, the happiness and the solidity of comfort they infuse into my daily life, and make home what it is. There is a tapestgry hanging in our bedroom that says, "To be at home is to find yourself with those who put your heart at ease." Christmas is the time of year I find home is much more than just a structure...it is a place my heart sings along with my voice to Christmas Carols, where the smile on a child's face as presents are opened is as warming as the blaze in the fireplace, and where I am safe, content and joyous and glad in the days God has given me..