The sky is cloudy, and a little rain is predicted for tonight. It is in the high 40’s but feels chillier. It is a good day to stay home, nice and cozy.

When I was a kid, Christmas took a great deal of preparation. It was the only day which merited a countdown. My mother gave us an Advent calendar every year. We’d open a numbered door a day. Inside each door was a Christmas or a winter image. Many of the images had glitter. There were snowmen, skates, wreaths, trees and always a Santa. Behind the 24th door was the Nativity. We used to take turns opening the doors. I still get an Advent calendar every year, but now I don’t have to take turns opening the doors.

We’d start begging for our Christmas tree a week or two after Thanksgiving. My father would put us off for a bit then he’d go to the gas station to buy our tree. When I was young, it didn’t matter what the tree looked like, whether there were bare branches or spaces. It was having the tree which mattered. It gave joy. I remember walking downstairs each morning and seeing the tree in the corner and smelling the aroma of pine. It filled the house.

The tree would sit for a couple of days so the branches would fall then my father would pull out the boxes of lights and ornaments. The lights were the big bulbs, the ones which would get warm. They were also the lights where one dead bulb doomed the rest of the bulbs. The strands were always tangled. My father, not being a patient man, hated those tangled lights. He’d follow a strand which led nowhere. He’d curse. He’d try again. Finally he was ready to plug in the strand and check the bulbs. More than not they didn’t light. That was another cause for cursing, very un-Christmasy. Finally he would take off every bulb then hunt for the bad one. He’d hang the lights around the tree then it was our turn. First went on the tinsel. It was strung around the tree. It was red and green and silver. My mother was particular as to how it hung. It had to drape. She then hang the big ornaments on the top branches. We never hung those. We’d hang all the rest. My mother’s job was then to make sure that bare spots had ornaments, especially in the middle.

The icicles were the last of the decorating. They were lead. We used to roll them into small balls and throw them at each other until one of us got hurt or my mother yelled. We’d hang them nicely for a while so they looked like real icicles then we’d get tired and start tossing them in piles on the branches. My mother stopped us. She rehung the ones we’d thrown and then hung the rest of the icicles. The tree always looked beautiful. I used to love to lie under the tree and look up at the ornaments and the lights. Everything shined.