Is It Beginning to Look a Lot Like..........?

I took the pumpkins off my front porch yesterday. The gourds that seemed so appropriate just a week ago were jarringly out of place this weekend. To the compost they went. My plucky Angel Wing Begonias had a hard week. It finally got cold enough to nip the little darlings "in the bud" so to speak. The slimy and discolored vegetation bore no resemblance to the exuberant flowers that still bloomed Thanksgiving. Out they went, to be replaced with holly boughs and pine branches.

This Christmas just snuck up on me. I understand we have one less week between Thanksgiving and Christmas his year and I'm feeling it! That breathing week between the two holidays is a luxury. Time to get the pilgrims off the mantel and the Christmas china into the cupboard. The bonus week gets the left-over turkey and dressing out of the fridge before the Christmas baking starts and the Fruit Baskets start arriving from out of town friends. I miss this breathing room week!

It's not that I didn't know that Christmas was coming. I am directing a play at Muskogee Little Theatre called The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and have been hanging garland and decorating Christmas trees for the last two months. Of course, all the decorations were on the stage. Poinsettias and my creche scene decorate the foyer of MLT, not my living room. I was shopping for cast mementos, not Christmas presents. I loved every second of preparing for this delightful play, but it is time to catch up with Christmas!

So, Sunday evening, no matter what, the Christmas Tree was going up. My granddaughter has been a little put out that the tree at Oh-Mommy and An-Daddy's was conspicuously absent. Her tree had been up since Thanksgiving weekend. They have baked things already. Presents are actually wrapped and under their tree. Who raised her organized Mother?

We lured said parents and grandchildren over with steaks on the grill and Caesar Salad. The boxes of ornaments were stacked and ready. The lights on the tree were twinkling, encouraging participation. No surprises. The men sat in front of the television, watching the Bowl announcements (GO OU!) and the women and children decorated the waiting evergreen.

Our own little Christmas miracle happened as we began to hang ornaments on the tree. It started with a generic looking Santa that Annebelle pulled out of a box. Annie shared that she had received him at a gift exchange in elementary school and liked it to opening a pair of socks. We laughed at the famous Q-Tip and notebook paper reindeer and the plastic angel with extra eyes that always graced my own childhood tree. Radko works of art hang side by side with pipe cleaner snowmen and plastic frames of my children on yet another Santa's lap at the mall. Hanging those Polaroid photographs of our children and their friends is always precious to me. Eight year old Ward in a cast, four year old Tom with two mis-matched socks, Catherine at five, holding her Wish List in her hand, and young friends in the picture that are still dear friends today.

Something I had been seeing as a chore turned out to be one of those life "moments". As three generations decorated the Christmas tree, at the same time an oral history of our family was shared with its newest member. Stories and anecdotes that link the yesterdays with the todays. Memories and traditions that link today with tomorrow. My Mother and my Grandmothers and my Aunts were there last night, as Annebelle hung her heritage on the branches. She will grow up with the stories and she will grow up with the love. Love that transcends lifetimes. Love that continues through those that follow. Children are the link in the chain that guarantees who we are a s a family will continue.

Every Christmas, my husband, Warren, lifted one daughter and then another to hang an angel at the top of the tree. I have years of pictures as they reach to place her on the highest bough. The angel is kind of raggedy as she also hung on my childhood tree. Mother brought her to Annie one Christmas season years ago, and when the the little doll is given the place of honor at the top, it signals the tree is complete. Sunday night, Annebelle's Daddy lifted her to place the angel where she always belongs. I knew my Mother, Shirley Ann, was smiling.as she watched her great-grandchild. I too was smiling, with a few sappy tears thrown in for good measure.