It’s Christmas Eve 2014. I spent a lovely evening with friends, eating pizza, drinking rum & cokes and sharing stories. Then we went out and drove around the neighborhood searching for the winners of our subdivision’s Outdoor Decorating Contest.

I snapped a few pics of the ones that we found:

I loved the one that was set to music, perfectly synced up to a specific radio station playing Christmas music. The best light-show was when the Trans Siberian Orchestra came on. Love that music! Below is a video of one of my favorites, Trans Siberian Orchestra’s holiday song, “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo”:

Speaking of music, this evening I heard a sound that is absolutely music to my ears: I had just fed the dogs their dinners — I have nine dogs here right now: seven Greyhounds, a Whippet and a Lab mix — and I stood in the kitchen waiting while they finished. It was so quiet except for the crunch-crunch munch-slurp sounds coming from every corner of the house, happy dogs chowing down. It was an absolute symphony of contentedness!

Tomorrow morning I’m going to continue the tradition that I started several years ago. Many of you know that while most people are spending Christmas with their families, I’m here at home watching everyone else’s dogs. Dogsitting is what I do for a living and missing holidays is just the nature of my business. So instead of opening presents on Christmas morning, I scramble up a couple dozen eggs and each dog gets a scoop of scrambled eggs on top of their breakfast, complete with a Merry Christmas kiss on top of their head when I set their bowls down.

What Christmas traditions are you most fond of? Have you started any new traditions? If so, please share with us what they are.

Let me take this time now to wish you all a

VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

May it be filled with endless blessings and love!

xoxoxo