Today is cold, raw and damp. The sky is cloudy. Rain and snow are predicted. The temperature is only in the 30’s and will stay there most of the day. Nothing about today’s weather is inviting though every now and then a bit of blue breaks through, a false hope. I’m staying home. I’m going to start decorating, and tomorrow will be tree day. I’m even decorative. I’m wearing a new pair of flannel pants. They are blue and decorated with Santa and his sleigh, fir trees covered in snow, bright stars and red cottages with snowmen in front with top hats and carrots noses.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite Christmas traditions was decorating sugar cookies. I can’t imagine Christmas without sugar cookies. My mother had cookie cutters in the shapes of Santa, a tree, a bell, an angel and a reindeer. The reindeer was the most difficult to cut out and bake as his antlers sometimes broke. My mother would make frosting, put it in bowls then color it. The kitchen table always ended up with globs of frosting in a rainbow of colors. My mother also put jars of sprinkles in green and red and multicolored jimmies on the table. They made the cookies prettier, but they added to the mess, to the globs on the table, but it didn’t matter. The mess was part of the tradition. We always rewarded ourselves with a cookie or two.

I’m watching Christmas movies just about every day. When I was a kid, there weren’t that many choices. I loved Suzie Snowflake, a bit of animation with a song. We watched the New Hampshire Santa every afternoon. I remember a Rudolph cartoon. It was in black and white so no red nose, but we imagined it was there. I remember Frosty. He had a tall skinny top hat, and he carried a broom. We watched the Perry Como show. He wore great christmas sweaters and always sang Ave Maria. I remember watching a Christmas Carol every Christmas. It is still one of my traditions. I have seen it so many times I know much of the dialogue. Last night I watched the transformation of George C. Scott as Scrooge. It is one of the best. Maybe tonight I’ll watch the Muppets. I’m ready for a bit of Christmas whimsy.

The morning is windy and chilly, only in the low 40’s. I wore my thick blue sweater with snowflakes across the middle. It was a perfect choice. I was toasty warm. I went down cape to Orleans for PT. The highway, the mid-cape, as you go down cape has only a single lane on each side. Where I hit the highway has a double lane so I sped hoping to pass the white truck I could see before the second lane disappeared. I didn’t. That truck drove me crazy. The speed limit is 55. I usually go faster. The truck went slower. There was a line of cars behind us. The truck was the Pied Piper, and we were the rats following it out of town. Later, further down the road with even more cars behind us, I decided we were lemmings.

My dance card has never been this full. I have been busy every day this week. Today, though, I’m finished early. My PT was at 9:45. I have a list. During the rest of the day I have plants to water, laundry to do, Christmas cards to address and decorations to bring up from the cellar. I’ll bring up my scrub pine tree which is always in the dining room. Lots to do!

When I was a kid, every tree we had was beautiful. Their lights were strands of huge bulbs which got hot, but which we touched anyway in a short of contest of who could hold on to the bulb the longest. The large glass ornaments always went on the top branches. My mother put those on the tree. We put on the smaller glass ornaments, the Shiny Brights. Some had stripes, others had lines from Christmas carols and a forest or a chapel in the background, but most were just colored balls: blue, green, silver, gold and red. We had some wooden ornaments, and we used to put Christmas cards in the center of the tree to cover the bare spots. The paper Santa had a coke. My mother strung the silver tinsel around the tree. The last were the icicles made of lead and perfect weapons if rolled into balls. They hurt and made little red marks. My mother always yelled.

Once the tree was finished, I’d sit on the couch and admire it. Sometimes I’d lie underneath it and look up into the branches bright with color. I felt surrounded by Christmas. It was the best feeling of all.