Someone asked me a couple weeks ago if I was in the Christmas spirit, and since it was still more than 60 degrees outside in late November, I wasn't feeling it. But now that our tree is up, the weather outside is frightful and we're well into December, I'm officially in the Christmas spirit.

This season is special for Jesus reasons, but it's also special for all the joy it musters up inside of me. Something about it makes me feel like a kid again. It gives us a taste of what the world would be right if everything was as it should be. I like making lists, so I made a top ten list of all the superficial reasons I love the Christmas season:

(10) Driving around and looking at all of the houses that have been magnificently illuminated (I'll admit that this was better in Iowa.)

(9) Massive Nativity scenes (Like the ones in front of Churches or random houses that you can see a mile away.)

(8) All the Christmas characters (Including, but not limited to: Santa, the elves, the Grinch, Rudolph, Frosty and anyone featured in the Rankin-Bass cartoons.)

(7) Candy canes (The original mint kind, not the weird multi-colored ones. Strangely, I don't like regular old mints all that much.)

(6) Bundling up and dropping change in the Bell Ringer's jars (This is my favorite time of the year to go to the grocery store. Everyone's in scarves, gloves, coats, sweaters, shirts, undershirts and some form of a hat or earmuffs, and it's still frigid, yet we're all willing to stand around in the cold rummaging through our many pockets for loose change.)

(5) Taking a nap by a Christmas tree (We put up a tree this year, and it brings a boderline-supernatural sense of peace to the room)

(4) Downtown Chicago (The Daley Center Christmas Tree, all the other hundreds of trees, the horns, the lions at the Art Institute, the Marshall Fields/Macy's windows, the skating rink at Millenium park, the street musicians playing Christmas songs, Magnificent Mile lights, FAO Schwartz, carriage rides and all the rest. There's no place like Chicago during the holidays.)

(3) "It's a Wonderful Life" (I've seen it enough now that I can enter in at any time and I'll be a puddle afterwards. How can Christmas be Christmas without:

"My mouth's bleeding, Burt! My mouth's bleeding! Zuzu's petals...Zuzu's petals!"

"Mr. Gower cabeled you need cash, stop. My office instructed to advance you up to twenty-five thousand dollars, stop. Hee Haw and Merry Christmas! Sam Wainwright."

"A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town."

"Happy New Year to you... in jail."

"George Bailey, I'll love you 'til the day I die. "

"This is a very interesting situation! "

"He's making violent love to me, mother! "

"You speak for yourself, Miss B. "

"I wish they were rabbits."

"Every man on that transport died! Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry."

"Ah, youth is wasted on the wrong people."

Case in point: As I was typing these quotes up, the tears started coming. Other than Shawshank, no movie affects me the way this one does. I miss when this was on 24-7 for weeks at a time. Watching it on DVD just isn't the same.)

(2) Snow (In December, I love snow. It gives me good vibes, it brings up good memories, I don't mind walking in it, the cold, the ice or even the fact that our already-feeble amount of parking spots just got cut by a third. In January, I might have a different reaction, but Christmas isn't Christmas without snow.)

(1) Christmas music (Whether in my home, at the store or on WLIT, I love Christmas music. I'm partial to the crooners, the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas music and good jazz renditions of old standards - the John Coltrane variety, not the Kenny G variety. But really any Christmas music puts me in an instantly good mood.)

What are your favorite things about Christmas? Any favorite tunes we should hear, movies we should watch or other Christmas stuff that makes you feel like a kid again?

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