“Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance – each beautiful, unique and too soon gone.”
The sun is shining, and Miss Gracie is spending time outside so I’m guessing it’s a warmer day. As for me, it’s a better day. My moans and groans are quieter, and I made a pot of coffee, carried it in a thermos to the table and read the papers. I even did the crossword puzzles.
The science fiction channel is having a countdown to Christmas. Their current offering is about an ice monster who uses icicles to impale and freeze people. I figure at least the monster ought to be sporting a bit of mistletoe.
When I was a kid, our tree fell a few times. The crash I remember most was one night when my parents were out grocery shopping. My brother and I were watching television when we heard behind us the whoosh of branches and the sounds of glass ornaments breaking as the tree fell. It was too late to catch it so we lifted the tree and then took turns holding it up at the trunk until my parents came home. We weren’t very old so the thought of tying the tree never occurred to us. When my dad came home, he hammered a couple of nails into the top parts of the windows and then tied both sides of the tree. Every year after that, he tied the tree as a precaution. In my mind’s eye, every tree at that house from then on had a string on each side from the trunk to the window.
My mother was the decorator. My father believed in expediency. His two jobs were to put the tree in the stand and then put on the lights. His lights were always a tangled mess from the year before, and in the old days, he cursed a bit trying to find the one bulb preventing all the others from lighting. The bulbs were huge in those days, and the trees were always bright. Most nights, just after we’d turn on the tree lights, I ‘d sit a while and just stare at the tree loving the color and how all the ornaments shined in the light. I still like to do that.
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December 11, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I am always amazed how a pagan, nordic, winter solstice symbol such as the Christmas tree has become so ingrained in the Christmas celebration.
Jesus of Nazareth was actually born in March or April and not in December. Mary and Joseph were going to their hometown because the Roman government always conducted the census, to collect taxes, during the Passover. Yes, Jesus and his parents were Jewish. The early Roman Church created the modern Christian beliefs by creating a kind of monotheistic religion combined with paganism that the Roman world would buy. After all the first Jewish ritual the early Christians did away with, in the era before anesthesia was invented, was circumcision.
I guess if we didn’t have Christmas, then the big department stores would have had to invent something else to get us to part with our money near the end of the year. If the stores don’t do well during the holiday season, then there is nothing that they can do to make up the loss during the entire year. So, let’s all help the economy, keep the factories in China going and spend our money to put gifts under the tree. Who cares if the season is full of pagan symbols it’s still better to give than to receive.
December 11, 2010 at 6:50 pm
You neglected to link Christmas with Kwanzaa.
Cheers
December 12, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Minicapt,
There was no Kwanzaa when I was a kid so I have little information and no experiences.
December 12, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Bob,
When I was in college, the theology professor explained that Christ was born, according to all the historical clues, some time in 4 BC.
I am glad that so many different cultures have gifted us with pieces of Christmas.
Money isn’t necessary as I have often made gifts for my family, and they love them more than any I would have bought.
I always feel Christmas is love and family and all our wonderful traditions.
Reply
December 11, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Kat
Very glad to hear that you are feeling better.
I am enjoying the most festive of Saturdays, our tree is aglow and decorated with ornaments from our travels and those wonderful school projects that the kids completed many years ago. The house is quiet except for the sound of Newcastle against Liverpool which was Dvr’ed to be viewed after a full morning of shopping.
This evening we will head into Rochester, where the town attracts hundreds of visitors to see the light display.
December 12, 2010 at 3:13 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I love your Saturday and can see your tree in my mind’s eye. My tree too has ornaments from my travels and some from my childhood. I love to sit and look at my tree.
December 11, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Bob’s got the Pagan history down above, good translation. It’s true. I’ve read this in many historic books. The Bible also was written by men who called anyone a God who would feed and clothe them. Higher Power is a phrase I use but not very often,I gave up on the Catholic Church many years ago. Glad you got that thermos Kat. Now you can zero in on that caffeine for your morning ritual. We never had a tree fall to my recollection but I heard of neighbors who did and some were set on fire. Do you remember the early days when we had those space heaters in the bathrooms? Those caught on fire too! So maybe it’s the season to be weary. We celebrate family and prosperity for the New Year in all our festive meetings down here. We start early this year with Jeromes first birthday tomorrow. I’m making the cupcakes for his party and dinner for his parents afterwards. Then Grandson #2 next Saturday. All I can say is here we go!
December 12, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Z&Me,
I added the year of Christ’s birth: 4BC.
My Christmas usually starts with the strolls in the towns then the picking the tree and decorating. This is my all time favorite time of year.
Jerome and his first Christmas-take lots of pictures!!
December 11, 2010 at 4:44 pm
So annoying! I wrote a comment here and it just disappeared! Couldn´t get in to my own blog either for a while.
It did happen that our trees fell once in a while too, but then it usually happened because a cat or dog jumped in to it 🙂 🙂
What Bob says is true, perhaps even more so here in scandinavia. We don´t even have Santa but a Yule gnome and before that the Yule goat 🙂 🙂 🙂 But symbols doesn´t matter to be honest, it is what´s in our hearts that counts.
Have a great day now!
Christer.
December 12, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Christer,
Sometimes the blog gods are against us!
I’d forgotten about the cats climbing the tree. I remember sitting in the living room and noticing a face looking at me from half way up the tree-it was my cat. Luckily the tree stood.
You are so right: it is what is in our hearts!!!!
December 12, 2010 at 1:20 am
My favorite was not the lights (except when folks had those alcohol lamps that bubbled…now THOSE are still cool). Mine was the real metal icicles (before they turned into packages of metalized Mylar strips. Each Christmas, the picking apart of globs of them into individual icicles and throwing each one just so onto the real tree branches was sort of a pre-Christmas Zen meditation that was hard to either beat or forget.
Going out to ranches south of my home town in west Texas and sawing down a 4-6′ reasonable-shaped example of tree from the trillions that grew out there was really an experience. Not only did we usually have hot weather to contend with, but the rattlesnakes (real or imagined) and prickly pear cactus for the unwary kept us on our toes and alert.
Also, although we called them “cedar trees”, they were really just ashe junipers. This is a description of them (not mine): “Ashe juniper is a small, many-stemmed tree found in rocky limestone soil from central to west Texas. It is the dominant juniper of the Texas Hill Country, and is usually referred to as cedar. The golden-cheeked warbler nests in older stands in the spring, using the bark, which comes off in long strips, for its nests. The leaves are dark green, minutely saw-toothed, and have a cedar scent. The large blueberry-like cones are eagerly eaten by wildlife.”
The branches were too thinly leaved and sparse to do more than PRETEND they were the hearty, healthy EXPENSIVE Christmas trees found on the lots that sprang up just after Thanksgiving around the towns of Texas.
But, they were free and evergreen and smelled pretty good to us. They held up the ornaments of most any size much better than the Norfolk Island Pine miniature trees that my first wife and I tried to pretend were big trees for some years.
That’s one Texas story of Christmas Past.
December 12, 2010 at 8:45 am
The real metal icicles were made out of lead foil. I know this because making it was one of my crappy high school jobs. When the cutting machine broke down, those of us on the line would amuse ourselves by crushing the strands into lumps, polishing them into shiny cubes on the conveyor belt and then pelting each other with them.
I agree with you that they made the best icicles. They had a lovely drape and they weren’t magnetically attracted to the tv set. 🙂
December 12, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Caryn,
Like you, we used to ball up those lead icicles and throw them at each other. They hurt when you head got hit. My mother was never a fan of that diversion.
I had to stop putting icicles on my tree when my cat starting eating them.
I found reproduction Victorian icicles made from metal. They look lovely near a light on the tree.
December 12, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Rick,
I loved your story of the tree and your description of it. We have always had fir trees though the kind sometimes differs. One we had, the kind I forget, had needles which lived up to their names by the time we took down the tree. We’d get stuck by those needles and they’d draw blood.
I have no favorite kind though I have a special spot where I buy mine as I always find the freshest, fullest trees.