I love Spring. It’s great when the temperatures start to rise and you can come out of hibernation. I also love Summer. Grilling out, going to amusement parks with the kids (pre-COVID), having plenty of daylight into the evening to extend all the fun. But the most wonderful time of the year, the one that I love, love is Fall.
That feeling when the weather gets brisk and you can throw on a light jacket can’t be beat, in my opinion.
It’s the beginning of jeans and sneakers (I was always anti-sandals my whole life, but I caved when we started going to the beach and now I throw them on all summer so I don’t have to keep putting on and taking off socks). It’s the beginning of the beauty of changing leaves. It’s the beginning of not having to mow the lawn every week. It’s the beginning of stepping outside and smelling someone’s chimney going. It’s the beginning of soup season. It’s the beginning of campfires in the back yard and making s’more’s with the kids.
I think the best beginning though, is the beginning of the holidays the fall and winter seasons bring – Thanksgiving and Christmas. Out of all the holidays, those two really bring the warmth of spending time with your family. Not running around and being in the same proximity with each other time. It’s lounging around with nothing to do, quality time.
I’m lucky enough that my employer gives us Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving and the Eves and day of for Christmas and New Year’s. It’s nice having those extra days to spend time together. Plus, it allows me to take a full week of without using as many vacation days.
I love the the time in between Thanksgiving and Christmas too because now that we have kids we can spend nights after dinner huddled around the television watching Christmas movies as a family and drinking egg nog. Although that sounds nicer than it is because they usually bicker back and forth and we have to tell them to be quiet so we can hear the damn movie.
The one downside to the actual day of the holidays is, the older kids want to play on their devices all day. Christmas day is a given, but I know they’ll expect to on the other days too. At least I still have my loving wife and our 1 year old to lounge around with.