Sorry for yesterday, but I lost the whole day working on Christmas. Skip, my factotum, came just as I had sat down at the computer to start Coffee so I had to abandon my efforts.

The decorating was a joint venture: Skip hauled boxes from the cellar while I decorated. I know a lot of my traditional decorations never made it upstairs, but I’m okay with that. Change is good.

After we finished the house and Skip had put the boxes away, we went and got the tree. I picked the most beautiful tree, no question about it. The top touches the ceiling and its boughs are full and lovely. The tree is a bit big so it took both of us to get it in the stand. I left Skip to put the lights on by himself and came in here to try to write Coffee. When I checked on Skip’s progress, I realized he is the worst light man I’ve ever seen. Some parts of the tree looked like Times Square while other parts resembled light less alleyways. I had him take off the lights, and together we began again. By the time we were through it was five o’clock, far too late for Coffee. Besides, my back had me twisted and bent so I decided to sit on the couch and rest my weary bones.

When I came downstairs this morning, the aroma from the tree filled the house, and I was reminded of every Christmas as far back as I can remember. Putting the tree up made it officially Christmas time. My parents kept the ornaments in cardboard boxes labeled Christmas on the side. The lights were jumbled together in one box, another held the strands of tinsel packed neatly by my mother, the stockings and table cloths filled another and the last box had all the ornaments. Many were glass. The largest glass ones only my mother could put on the tree, and they went placed near the top safely away from any of us. Other ornaments were cardboard. A couple were of Coca Cola Santa. A few ornaments were plastic. I think now I’d probably think them tacky, but they were never tacky when I was a kid. They were Christmas with all its wonder and joy.

Once the tree was done, all the living room lights were turned off, and my dad would plug-in the tree with a bit of a flourish. I remember none of us ever spoke a word. We just stood there for a while. Finally my mother would break the silence and just say, “Beautiful!”

Today is another warm day at 63°. Rain is predicted for late afternoon, but I don’t mind the rain. I did check the weather for the end of this week, and we’ll be in the 40’s. Even that seems warm for this time of year. I know there’s a winter out there just biding its time and waiting in the wings.

Gracie and I were out a long time yesterday running here and there to get all my errands done. Today I have nothing on the calendar. Tomorrow I have to go to Boston to a doctor’s appointment so I might just have to take it easy today with my book. I’ll try to struggle through doing nothing but turning pages.

When my dad put the Christmas lights up, we always watched. He’d check them first for dead bulbs then string them around the front bushes. The bulbs back then were huge. The inside window lights had plastic bases, and you had to twist the bulb to turn the lights on and off. I remember orange lights the most. The tree lights were always stored in some sort of tangled mess. My dad never had any patience with tree lights. Back then, if one bulb died, the whole set died. Sometimes it was two bulbs, and that was a problem almost never solved. My dad would curse his way through the set one bulb at a time replacing an old one with a new one until he’d found the problem. When he was ready, he’d put them on the tree. That’s when my mother stepped in. My dad was of the just get up and around the tree school of thought. My mother wanted a more artistic display with lights circling the tree both inside and outside the branches leaving few darks spots. She didn’t want bulbs of the same color beside each other, and my dad would have to switch a few until she was happy. The trees lights too had huge bulbs, and we used to turn the lamps off because the lights of the tree were so bright and beautiful.

I learned valuable lessons from my father. My lights are always wound a single strand at a time, and they are never tangled. I always have plenty of spare bulbs, but then again I am saved from the dead bulbs and the one at a time testing my father had to face. I use cool light bulbs, but when sets die, I replace them with LED’s. In the center of the tree I put white lights so they look like stars shining through the branches. The colored lights go inside and outside the branches the way my mother always liked her tree. I love to sit on the couch and look at my tree. It still awes me the same way it did when I was a kid.