The day is relatively warm at 42°. A bright sun is here but is sharing the sky with clouds. I can see a few hanging brown oak leaves swaying a bit. All in all, it is a pretty day.

Henry is doing better. He longer scratches his ear though he still shakes his head but hardly as often. Now I’m worried about Nala. She has been sick twice this morning. I hope it is a two on and done, perhaps an upset stomach as Henry blew my vet budget, nearly $400.00, and the vet is pay as you go. I’m keeping a close eye on Miss Nala.

My mother gave each of us a box of ornaments. They were some of the ornaments which hung on the Christmas tree every year when we were kids. They are colored glass, and each has a decoration etched in white. I always put them on my tree. They are memories.

The other day I saw a house with a picture window covered in white stenciled decorations. My memory draws flew open, and I remembered the picture window in our house when I was a kid. We’d tape on the stencils, dab them with a white sort of removable paint and carefully peel them off after everything had dried. The window was covered in Santa Claus, a bell, a tree, a snowflake and a candy cane. They seemed to shine in the sunlight. At night, the window and the stencils were highlighted in orange from the bulbs on the candelabra on the window sill below.

I remember the cardboard Santas and the cardboard trees. We’d tape them on walls or on other windows. Before taping, we’d peel off the yellow tape from years before. It came off easily but left permanent outlines on the back. They were like tree rings. We knew how many years we’d used those cardboard decorations.

Our tree stood in the corner between two windows. That was a good thing. I remember when the tree fell. My brother and I grabbed it and stopped it from falling completely to the floor. Our parents were out so we were forced to make-do. We each took turns holding up the tree until our parents got home. Then it was my father to the rescue!! He grabbed heavy duty string and wound it around the trunk while we held up the tree. He then attached the ends of the strings to each of the windows. The tree was safe, secure. Many, many years later my dog Shauna, my first boxer, pulled down my tree a couple of times. I knew the solution. I wound heavy duty string around the trunk and attached one end of the string to a window and the other end to a nail on the bottom of the fireplace mantle. My father had taught me well.

Today is more typical for December. It is in the low 40’s. The sky is cloudy with light grey clouds. They will hang around all day. I have the stirrings of a cold so I’m staying home. I have plenty of house and Christmas things to keep me busy.

Christmas always merited a countdown. The closer we’d get the more excited we’d be. We still shopped the Sears catalog just in case we missed something. We wrote letters to Santa. One year Santa sent us a telegram, a real telegram. On the top of it was a picture of Santa, his sleigh and all of his reindeer. They were flying over a house. Santa wrote it to the Ryan Children. We were reminded he was watching us to make sure we were good, as if we needed a reminder. He wished us a Merry Christmas and wrote he’d be seeing us. He signed it simply Santa. In a scrapbook somewhere in the eaves I have that telegram.

Back then, there were so many Christmas cards the postman came twice a day. We took turns opening the cards. My mother kept track of the senders making sure she had already sent one or needed to. We decorated with the cards. A string was hung across the wall over the couch. We’d put the cards on the string so you could see the fronts. We’d do the same on the wall behind the desk. My aunt used to send us kids a card. It was always Santa, and we’d place it on the tree mostly inside to cover the bare spots. I also remember a Coke-Cola Santa. He had a bottle of Coke in his hand. On the top of the card was an opening so you could hang it on the tree. He also covered bare spots.

I was always excited when my father spent a Saturday decorating the bushes in front of the house. I loved those lights. The bulbs were huge and always felt warm. The cord came through an open window to the plug, no timer back then. We’d race to plug in the lights as soon the sun started to go down. We’d also light the window lights, the candles. They didn’t have on-off switches. You had to turn the bulbs. They also got hot and turning them off burned your fingers a bit. I remember crawling under the tree to plug in the lights. I wonder now why we never had a fire as there were several plugs in only one outlet. I always thought the tree with its lights lit was the crowning achievement of Christmas decorations. I loved just sitting and looking at the tree. I loved that the house smelled of pine. I loved Christmas. Still do.