The saga of the Christmas tree began yesterday. I went to the garden center and bought my tree. It is a concolor tree. I read about it in the flyer from Agway. The tree has long needles, a bluish tint and smells of citrus. It lasts a long time so we may even be talking about my valentine tree. I hadn’t ever heard of a concolor before, but my Colorado sister had one last year and has it again this year. I also did some shopping and bought decorations for the house and chocolates for stockings. This morning Skip, my factotum, arrived with Bobby, his factotum. I had wrestled the tree out of the trunk and leaned it against the fence. Skip cut more of the trunk so it fit into the tree stand. Right now the two of them are moving the tree in the stand to make sure it’s straight. I laughed at them discussing the tree’s position, “No, my left. Go the other way. Move it back. Move it forward. Okay, that’s it.” It took far longer than it sounds. Right now they are putting on the lights, as may sets as can fit. Christmas music is playing. The house is getting festive.  

My Christmas to do list is shrinking. The Colorado presents went out UPS yesterday. They’ll arrive Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. Tomorrow is shopping for ingredients for baking. It is also wrapping my other sister’s gifts. Saturday is make fudge and maybe date nut bread for my sister. The marathon baking starts next week, and I have gifts for my cape friends to wrap.

When I was a kid, I never saw my mother wrapping gifts. She must have done them when I was asleep. We didn’t have a real attic. We had a Christmas Vacation attic with boards and insulation. A small ladder came down when you pushed opened the attic board. My mother used to hide gifts from Santa in the attic. I found that out one year when my father was in the attic passing gifts down to my mother. My sister was young then and she was getting a push toy which played music, and that’s what I heard, that’s what woke me up. I waited until my mother and father went downstairs for good then I sneaked down the stairs and looked through the bannister to watch my parents putting out the toys around the tree. I saw it all, and they never saw me. When I woke up and saw my gifts, I gave an Academy Award performance filled with wonder and surprise. 

I love Christmas, and the tree is like the icing on a chocolate cake.