We have now experienced three Christmas celebrations, taken a couple long car rides, hosted a few shindigs, and done all of the shopping, eating, drinking and making merry that goes along with our holiday season.

Throughout our travels, the packing and unpacking, the laundry, the grocery lists, the gift exchange spreadsheet, and the gazillion details (that always work themselves out one way or another), I have been overcome by emotions a few times as I tried to put into words what Christmas means to me. Here goes:

It's a fact: I love holidays and celebrations of all kinds. I especially love the delicious, delectable, and decadent foods that go with holidays and celebrations, so it was no surprise that I devoured the new cookbook by Ree Drummond, "A Year of Holidays."

The lead-up to the holidays is always hectic and busy, but when the kids are out of school and the snow is falling and there is nowhere I need to be, my favourite thing in the world is to curl up on the couch with a big mug of steaming coffee and Baileys. It's such a cozy, seasonal thing for me; reading a good book in my warm flannel pajamas, or maybe watching "The Price is Right" with the kids, curled up under a knitted afghan, but always, always with a coffee and Baileys.

Parents often try to balance the ‘gimmes’ of the holidays with giving back. We want our children to appreciate what they have while teaching them about what other people don’t have. We want them to understand that life isn’t about what you have, it’s about how you make others feel. And we want to do all this amidst the frenzy of Black Friday shopping, toy commercials, and our kids writing out lists of what they want for Christmas. Sometimes lists that are longer than they are tall.

The struggle is real.