We started to put up Christmas in the house today. This was accompanied by Christmas carols played and sang loudly. My all time favourite is Mary’s Boy Child, and the boy’s is O Christmas Tree. So we each played ours at top volume and sang out hearts out.

I realized as I was putting up our advent calendar how many wonderful Christmas traditions we have. Most of our away years we came home for the holidays, so most of our traditions are rooted here at the ranch already. Tomorrow we will get our lights up, soon we will get our tree, Christmas music will play until Boxing Day.

I found a photo taken maybe 5 or 6 years ago – my kids are standing in front of our house here and they look like it’s their home. Except it would still be quite a few years before we returned home. None of us ever thought we would be living in this house we have come to love so dearly.

How funny is that. It’s like they were practicing for years to come. Home sweet home. This place has been a safe haven on our road to happiness.