Lacey Middlestead is a Montana native and freelance writer currently living in Helena, Mont. She loves meeting new people and helping share their stories. When she’s not busy writing articles for newspapers like the Independent Record and Helena Vigilante, she can usually be found indulging in her second greatest passion–playing in the Montana wilderness. She loves skiing and snowmobiling in the winter and four wheeling, hiking, boating, and riding dirt bikes in the summer.

Christmas is such a magical and joyous time of year. But with stress currently emanating from what seems like every facet of my lift---from health and work to wedding planning and budgeting for presents, I’ve been a bit bah-humbug since the season descended.

Thankfully, in the past week I have been reminded of several Christmas traditions I personally hold dear and that get me excited each year for the holiday. Somehow I’d completely forgotten about them.

The first is paper snowflakes. When I first moved into my condo four years ago, I didn’t have a single Christmas decoration of my own let alone the money to justifiably purchase any. Then one day I was sitting at work wondering what project to next tackle when it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure if I still knew how to cut out paper snowflakes. After a few sad attempts which ended with chunks of paper falling to the floor, I finally looked up how to do it online. Once I started cutting, I couldn’t stop. Before I knew it, I had dozens of paper snowflakes cut out in white, blue and aqua colors.

“Now what the heck am I going to do with all these snowflakes?” I wondered.

I carted them home that night and the idea finally hit me…..I’ll hang them from my ceiling! So I strung them with fishing line and taped them to my kitchen ceiling. It was such a simple and inexpensive decoration but I felt absolutely giddy whenever I walked into my kitchen and saw my snowflakes.  I loved them so much that I left them up through February. Snowflakes are wintery and not just for Christmas after all. The tradition has stuck for the past four Christmases.

Remember that classic scene from the movie, “A Christmas Story” where the family’s prized Christmas turkey gets eaten by the Bumpus hounds? Ralphy and his family are resigned to eating Chinese turkey instead. Well, I’m not sure exactly how it got started but somewhere along the line my family started a Christmas Eve tradition of ordering Chinese take-out for our dinner. It is splendidly greasy and delicious. We gather around the table and dive into a dozen white boxes filled with fried rice, almond chicken, egg foo yung and broccoli beef. Oh and my favorite…. the crispy egg rolls. My mouth is watering just thinking about how quickly the Chinese feast is approaching. My family doesn’t have many annual traditions, but the Chinese food is one I plan on carrying on as long as possible.

Christmas is the one time of year where it’s perfectly acceptable to max out your outlets and jack up your power bill by illuminating every space possible with colorful lights. I did ballet for 13 years growing up and always looked forward to December at the dance studio. Our teacher would string festive lights around the room and then turn off all the main lights and let us dance under just the Christmas lights for the whole month. She also traded out our traditional ballet music for Christmas themed songs. Everything about dance class in December was magical and reminded me once more of how much I loved ballet and Christmas.

Since I am no longer in dance I don’t get that special privilege of dancing under the lights. However, a few years ago my mom bought me three little snowman figurines that light up in different colors of LED lights. Every year, I set them on the windowsill in my kitchen and watch them shift from hues of blue to red to green to orange. And sometimes…..just for old time sake, I turn off the lights and dance around my kitchen next to their rainbow glow.

Advent calendars are a popular Christmas tradition that many parents start with their children. They are a unique way of counting down the days to Christmas and they come in all shapes and sizes. Many have little doors or windows that the kids open each day and behind them lies a poem line, scripture verse, or perhaps even a piece of chocolate. I don’t remember how old I was when my mom started me on my advent calendar but it has become a time-honored tradition. It is such an important tradition in fact that, embarrassingly, my mom has continued it through this year even though I will soon be turning 28. But since I’m getting married next year, she’s threatened that this will be the last year……we’ll see!

My advent calendar looks like a house. The windows and doors are made out of little boxes that are numbered for each day of the month. My mom puts little candies or money in them each day. And if I’m really lucky, she put little notes inside with rhymes that lead me to presents hidden somewhere in my parents’ house. After opening the box each day you turn it around to reveal part of a window or door and then put it back in its slot. As you flip more boxes you start to see the whole house come together. It’s a beautiful hanging work of art by the time Christmas arrives.

So while this Christmas I have a dozen and a half things I’d like to complain about, I’m trying to refocus my attention to the little things that make this time of year so special and unique. There are so many reasons to smile and it is over so quickly.