A Few of My Favorite Things...

No, I haven't been watching The Sound of Music or trying to make lists of things I'm thankful for this holiday season. Although I totally endorse both of these activities.

It's just, in the past few days there have been several moments that have made me think, "Ahh, this is just one of my favorite things..." This seems like an appropriate season to be thinking about the little things in our lives that bring us joy and make us grateful. For instance:

-Living with my new husband.

-Trader Joe's $0.99 chocolate advent calendars.

-Blue skies with cool crisp air.

-Generosity. [And on this, please take the time to read this (very) short story on my sister's blog. It is one of the absolute sweetest things I've ever heard about.]

-Electric Blankets.

-Wool Socks.

-Christmas lights.

-Skyping with family back home.

-Waking up next to Adam.

-Listening to worship music when I'm home alone and scared.

-Game nights with good friends.

-Really warm covers.

-Yummy smelling candles.

-Goofy husbands and brothers in-law.

-The country.

-The ocean.

-Free Christmas music downloads from my favorite artists.

-Going to Trader Joe's when we are out of food and have a new month's food budget to start with.

-Entering my name into the raffle at Trader Joe's every time I go and just hoping this might be my lucky time...

-Slowly reading through the story of Christ's birth and life each Christmas season and reminding myself of the weightiness of this celebration.

-Writing Thank You notes. This may sound facetious given my recent wedding and my huge mound of thank-yous to be written. But I actually do love writing them. I always have. And I love sitting at our table working on them with Adam and remembering together the generosity that we were showered with. Not to mention we just got these adorable Thank You cards in the mail from Eric Kelley Photography:

The list could go on...but I had best be gettin' to.

What are some of your favorite things?