Ho, Ho, Ho

I love Christmastime.  As December approaches my spirit swells with an increasing jolliness and delight.  If its not "the most wonderful time of the year," it is darn close.  I love the music.  I love the lights.  I love the messages of peace and love and goodwill to all.  I love the food.  I love the parties.  I love the family time.  I love the candles.  I love the charity.  I love the stories.  I love the gift-giving.  I love the joy.  I even love the snow.

Matt, while a shade more subdued in his Christmas cheer, seems tickled to enable my exuberance. 

Defying our usual wait-until-December-actually-starts convention we put our tree on November 30th.  It was a gorgeous winter day and we were both in the mood.  A thick layer of snow had fallen overnight and we walked the few blocks to pick out our tree, dazzled by the sparkle all around us.

Matt selected a tree for us--we like the long-needled pine--and we strapped it on our runner sled and pulled it home over the snow.  It was so fun and charming.  I was nearly beside myself with happiness.

Matt sets the tree firmly in its base and then helps me wind the lights and garland.  After that, I am left to my own devices since he knows I love placing the ornaments just so.  Every ornament on our tree has a story or sentimental attachment behind it.  Many are handmade.  Almost all of them have followed Matt or I since childhood. 

Matt put on the Christmas carols so I could have a holly-jolly singalong as I worked.  My favorites are the sort of classics--Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, that sorta old-school sound.  Now that we've got the smartphone with unlimited data I can stream a variety of holiday tunes to my little heart's content. 

We took advantage of a recent snowfall to drive about town looking at Christmas lights.  Snow makes the lights all the more sparkly and magical for me.  I insisted we stop along Archway Lane so we could walk down the sidewalk under some of the arches.  We spent a good half hour in front of this dental place that has an insane light show synced up with a bunch of Christmas tunes over the radio.  I won't lie:  It made me bust up/squeal/exclaim aloud in delight a few different times.    It is a solid little light show, though Matt and I dispute that Amazing Grace is a Christmas song.

We had our photo taken with Santa last week during a visit to my Dad's.  Kriss Kringle asked what I wanted and I told him "a lava lamp," and he said he could handle that.  Then he asked if I remembered the string-and-oil lamps from the 60s.  We had one in our living room when I was growing up.  I'd been in love with that thing so I was tickled that Santa was also a fan. 

I helped my dad and Dana hang Christmas lights at their house while I was in town.  Matt entertained us playing with the snow in the yard.  He made an adorable miniature snowman and, along with my sister, turned the street-sign into a snowball target.

Last night I stretched out at the foot of the Christmas tree to read under the soft, colored lights.  Ginger curled up with me as I finished a collection of Christmas stories, poems, and songs put together by Tasha Tudor.  I loved reading the different Christmas stories, like The Little Fir Tree or The Gift of the Magi, and the legends that offer origins for the Robin's red breast or the name of the Rosemary bush.  The book made me recall a collection we had on the shelf in my childhood.  I don't recall the name of the anthology at this remove, but it was red in color and contained O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi.  That story of unselfishness is associated with some of my earliest Christmas memories.

The cats, to my pleasure and surprise, do not have much interest in the Christmas tree.  I saw Ginger bat at an ornament once and both will sniff the needles, especially the first day the tree arrives.  I got my very first kitten for Christmas back in the 90s.  I named her Holly in honor of the season and one of the first things she did was scale the Christmas tree.  Ginger and Johnny though are much more indifferent.

I am eagerly looking forward to a couple weeks off over the holidays and drafting a list of projects to amuse me and fill my days--sewing, reading, making soap, visiting family and friends, taking candle lit baths, baking and cooking, making music, and so on.

While we still have lights to hang on the front fence and porch railing, we have successfully converted the greenhouse into the Christmas Clubhouse.  Matt had a brilliant idea to hang our hammocks in there this year, in addition to the red Christmas lights.  It is a surprisingly pleasant place to spend a wintery afternoon, book and cuppa in hand.

I find myself saying, "Ho, ho, ho!" at least once per day.  I am so merry it border on obscene.  I wouldn't want it any other way.