I Cry the Day I Take the Tree Down... No I Don't!

Hmmm. I don't usually have a hard time writing. I've tried writing this same blog post all night long, and it's New Year's Eve,  so it really IS a long night, one of the longest of the year.

I must say, I am the most nostalgic of my siblings, but we all have butter-soft hearts. We are big 'ole softies when it comes to Christmas, and we love reminiscing about the past. We have soft spots about Christmas, and we love all things Christmas. I think we all listen to the same Christmas music. We have all the same Christmas CD's. We have similar taste in Christmas lights (I think we all use white Christmas lights--not sure about Sarah since it's been a while since I've dropped by to see her tree, in ROCHESTER!) However, I have it on good authority that I'm currently the only one using  "vintage" Christmas ornaments. Schenny-Penny has some that she collected from our childhood on her "Barbie Tree" but they are not currently on display (not since the great "Barbie Tree Massacre").

Growing up, we had real trees, and we set them up the day after Thanksgiving which meant that they were fire-hazards and often came down on Boxing Day except for the famous Christmas day, except for the famous fire of Christmas Day. My John has had the firm rule that the tree stayed up until Epiphany, and we have never decorated the tree before Advent Sunday in our married life... but in our new house the "rules" have changed a bit... and traditions change a bit as children change and needs change. Our lives have changed as my health has made what I do changes, too. This year, I did Christmas in our new house almost exactly as I did nineteen years ago when my parents moved into their house across town... and the nostalgia was thick, especially as my brother Mark moved the grandfather clock into our new house. It was my mothers Christmas gift that year. I hear the bells on Christmas Day, every day. Wild and sweet, their words repeat, and it's rarely, rarely peaceful. Trust me.

We set up several trees all those years ago... we had a tree with crocheted angels, and we had a tree with silk wrapped balls (and years later, we had only 2 or 3 left after a puppy got into them. I think that puppy was partially feline for all the delight shredding Christmas decorations brought. I rescued one  as a souvenir... I also kept the only one I could fine that  mom and I had made from scraps of fabric that we'd pushed into styrofoam balls. It was a craft project that I remember making with my mom. We used pieces of flannel for the first sets. When I took this ball, I couldn't find any of the original flannel balls. I only found this ball (top ball, green dots, snowflakes, snowmen). The original flannel balls we made in the early 1980's when I was 8 or 9 are gone... These were made when I was about 16. The silk balls were on the tree in our living room next to the grand piano. My mom's tree in that room had red and white lights and she had covers that snapped on over the lights.

We always had two Christmas trees. The tree upstairs had multi-color lights on it. It was completely different... The upstairs tree had the kid-decorations and the tree downstairs had red and white decorations. Always. The multicolored tree had the Hallmark decorations, and the decorations with our names, and it was the tree where mom turned off the lights and rocked and rocked and rocked and listened to "Happy Christmas Eve." It was Christmas. We used to lay underneath the tree as kids and look up at the lights under the tree before there were too many presents to lay under the tree anymore... and there were always loads of presents. Mother was terribly creative with presents, too. Sometimes we got reindeer names.

And, I suddenly realize that the reason that this is such a hard blog post to write is because it's not about Christmas decorations at all. It's about hellos and goodbyes. It's about beginnings and endings. It's about stops and starts and the way we ring out the old and start the new. As Sarah McLauchlan sings in her bittersweet "Wintersong" I have read the self-same sad farewells on Facebook to lost loved ones, as well. It's the same, day in, days gone.

It's the Auld Lang Syne:
Sense of joy fills the air
And I daydream and I stare
Up at the tree and I see
Your star up there

And this is how I see you
In the snow on Christmas morning
Love and happiness surround you
As you throw your arms up to the sky
I keep this moment by and by



And as the sun rises tomorrow morning, on the new year, I hope love and happiness surround you and yours, and that you'll throw your arms up to the sky and I'll keep this moment by and by.