![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Fall-Christmas-Fireplace-5.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nTime for confession. I caved. Seems I\u2019m still nostalgic with remembering nine years ago when I decorated our home for Christmas before Thanksgiving just before my husband passed away. I had never done that before and never since, but this year I can\u2019t help myself. I’ve got a mishmosh going on — Thanksgiving d\u00e9cor mixed with Christmas d\u00e9cor. My family will be getting two great celebration seasons rolled into one when they come in for Thanksgiving next week.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Fall-Simply-Blessed.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI was amused hearing some folks complaining about the early sales of Christmas decorations and hearing Christmas music playing since back in September. I understand retail stores want their bottom lines increased so they amp it up to get us into the “buying” frenzy way before the Christmas season. I can\u2019t fault them for that. In order to vacate those shelves as quickly as possible, there are already 50% off sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Christmas-Kitchen-Tree.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nMost of us want to embrace each season and make it as memorable as we can. We want to savor Fall with the leaves changing colors, pumpkin spice aromas and coffee, autumn d\u00e9cor. We want to remember the first Thanksgiving and the pilgrims and we want to make the Fall season special and meaningful. But, what’s the big deal? Why should it matter when people begin to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas? What matters is that we open our hearts and our homes to gratitude at Thanksgiving and to the joys, delights, and celebrations of Christmas. Actually, both seasons could easily be merged together as one. So, here I am — on board the early Christmas train!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Fall-Entry-Table-3.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nBoth of these beautiful seasons tend to make us more thankful, kinder, and expressing gratitude for God’s blessings and for celebrating Christ\u2019s birth. Joy to the world; the Lord has come. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. I\u2019m already allowing myself to get caught up in the miraculous Christmas story as I set out my many manger and Holy Family scenes. And, as I\u2019m embracing and pondering all that Christmas means, when my family is together here in Frisco next week, this mode of thanksgiving, will simply open the door for all the joys and beauty of Christmas<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Fall-Christmas-Fireplace-3.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI’ve honed into this beautiful journey that will lead to the most Holy Day when our Savior was born \u2013 and, it would have been okay if I started way back in July! After all, it\u2019s more than a season or a day. It’s our reason for unspeakable joy, indescribable love, and amazing sacrifice \u2013 that the ONE Who placed the stars in the sky and Who knows them all by name — chose to come to this earth as a little baby to be with me, understand me, live in this world like me. He totally gets me and my frailties, but better yet, He is my all powerful, incomparable, awesome and amazing God. That’s plenty reason to celebrate all read round! So, the next time we’re tempted to complain about “too early”, let’s turn that around and welcome the reminder to thank God for the Reason for the season. It\u2019s just too great a story to compact it into only one celebration. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s been “beginning to look a lot like Christmas” for months now. The big box stores have been touting us with their holiday wares since before Spring ended.This year I\u2019m noticing even more folks skipping right over Thanksgiving and putting up their Christmas trees, house lights and decorations. Their home covered in a blanket of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15620,15618,15621,15622,15619],"tags":[15623,1210,251,7007,4371,4030,1034,6150,15624,15625,4159,4260,15626,15627,1470,775],"class_list":["post-11408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cant-lick-em","category-christmas","category-join-em","category-reason-for-the-season","category-thanksgiving","tag-beginning-to-look-like-christmas","tag-blog","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-music","tag-decorations","tag-embrace","tag-fall","tag-holiday","tag-join-em","tag-lick-em","tag-lights","tag-reason-for-the-season","tag-retail-stores","tag-sales","tag-season","tag-thanksgiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11417,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11408\/revisions\/11417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}