Christmas memories

Margaret's post about Christmas sparked a bunch of memories for me. I'll post them in digestible doses, and hope that everyone will correct or fill in the details I may have forgotten. Christmas was not just a holiday at our house. It was a season, a lifestyle, a state of mind. Although there were preparations and a lot of talk before, it officially began on December 1^st--Kathleen’s birthday. She always pulled the first figure out of the number one pocket on the felt advent calendar and placed it on the tree. We took turns, by age, decorating the advent calendar day by day during December. On the first, Kathleen also lit the wick on the first day of the Spirit of Christmas candle. It was lit at meal time and stayed burning throughout the meal unless we were less than civil to each other. We helped lick the stamps on the out-going Christmas cards Dad and Mom addressed, and hang the in-coming cards on the cord across the dining room.

It seemed that we had a tall Christmas tree every year, though that tradition may have actually started in the high-ceilinged rooms of the Fairfax house. I remember Dad putting the lights on first, which seemed to take forever while we waited to get started with the other decorations. The huge pinecones (from California, I think) went on next, and then the ornaments. Mom was so careful with the ornaments, and I felt like she was holding her breath while she let us kids help put them on. Hanging the icicles was the most fun of all, though the messiest. Everyone had their own style—some separated one icicle from the bunch and placed it carefully in it’s perfect pre-destined spot. Others impulsively tossed handfuls, watching them fall willy-nilly wherever they might, often in tangled clumps. Then the dining room lights would be turned out and we would be amazed at the artistry of our slipshod handiwork. Somehow, the next morning, the tree would be evenly covered with silver shininess and well-spaced ornaments, as if some fairy had rearranged the mess after we had gone to bed.

I loved the star that Dad made out of plywood and lined with outdoor lights. It hung on the garage at the green house in Cleveland, then over the front door at the Fairfax house. There were years that we put up other lights outside, but the star was always my favorite. It seemed to say, “There’s always room at this inn”.