No matter what holiday it is you celebrate, or how you go about doing it, there is always something that comes each year that makes the holiday so special. Everyone has their own traditions—the ones that make the season so exciting. The build up before the actual holiday arrives—whether that be decorations, baking, shopping, the meals, the family that comes home. Everyone has their own markers that signify the holiday is here, that little something special that makes the time of year so desirable.

For me, the Christmas season is marked by light. It is marked by the hundreds and hundreds of lights that just about cover every inch of my house. They light up my room, my roof, my gutters, my bushes. Between the Joy sign that lights up its shadow on the side of my house, the star that shines so bright and tall on my roof top that I can spot it out from the main road in my town, and the color coordinated bushes that symbolize dad’s favorite Wisconsin sports teams—there is nothing about the shining display that doesn’t scream Christmas spirit. When the lights go up, my spirit is up, and that’s when my mind, my heart, and my excitement focus on the holidays.

It has always been what my Dad enjoys doing the most, and for that same reason, my family has grown to enjoy and appreciate it all the same. There are hundreds of strand of lights. They are wrapped according and meticulously at the end of every year, so when Christmas comes around, decorating is prepared for. Checking each bulb before putting them outside is a process me and my brothers gladly took part in as kids, getting excited just to walk in circles in the living room pacing and searching for burnt out lights. Then it's a matter of who would brave the Wisconsin winter and go outside to help set up the lights for the weekend.

At the end of the day, when nights comes, and the whole house lights up—marks my favorite feeling of the entire year.

It’s weird to think how every family, every tradition, is unique to where they started. For some, it involves decorating a house in snow and winter coats, and for some it's finding a palm tree in their backyard and wrapping it with lights. But the one thing that never changes is the spirit that is felt all around the world, unique to every person throughout the holiday season. It’s the best time of the year—knowing everyone comes together someway somehow, to celebrate the special day we look forward to.

For me, cookies, hot chocolate, a snow covered backyard, family to enjoy it with, and a lit up house to gather us all is what makes my heart happy and full for the holiday season. It truly is the best time of the year. From florida to Alaska people around the world are feeling the same warm, joyful holiday spirit. Each tradition, each family, and each person all looking forward to it and celebrating it in ways that they were grown up to look forward to and cherish.

It’s moments like this, like my house lighting up for the first time of the season, that remind me of what the holidays are all about. The traditions, the people who come with them, the light, the spirit. Do whatever it is that makes your heart happy and full this season, and remember what the holidays are all about. Family time and Christmas lights are the simplest of things, yet they make me the happiest kind of happy I could ever be. After all, it is the most wonderful time of the year—and it's all about making it that way with the traditions and roots you are appreciate it with.