There's nothing like the joy that fills your heart when you know that you are loved.

I am in the best mood that I've been in these past few weeks. I just finished my paper!!! Not only did I finish it, but I happen to think it's pretty good!

Aside from that, it's almost finals week, which means that it's almost time to go home!!!! I go home in 9 days, and I'm so excited! Plus, I get to see my family on Saturday, which I'm pretty stoked about. I found out that I'm getting an 81 in one of my classes (which is definitely NOT what I thought I was getting!) and so now I don't have to take the extra credit quiz tomorrow! Which means I don't have to read an unnecessary book, which will only take up brain space that needs to be filled with information pertinent to my finals.

So seeing as how it's December 6th (rather, it's 2:50 a.m. on December 7th, but I still haven't slept, so it's December 6th to me), I think I'll share one of my favorite childhood Christmas traditions. I must preface this by saying that my dad is German, so this is a German tradition.

December 6th was always the night in our house that Niklaus came, because that's the day that he came in Germany. Niklaus is the German Santa Claus. As kids we'd always get so excited! Of course, Niklaus couldn't come until it was dark, because he never traveled in the daylight. But that never stopped us from asking when he was coming! It was the biggest thing in our house! And we always knew when he was coming because he would ring bells. We listened for the bells pretty much as soon as the sun set. Niklaus would bring us bags with gifts and candy, and would set the bags by the door. As soon as we heard the bells we knew that he had brought the gifts. The first thing we did was run to the window to get a glimpse of him! It was the best feeling in the world when we saw Niklaus walking away in his red suit with his beard and his black boots in the snow. One year he even had a sleigh with a horse! Then of course we brought in our bags and proceeded to sort through our Christmas treasures! Those are memories that I will never forget, and traditions that I will carry out with my own children.

Perhaps I will share mor traditions as Christmas gets closer :)