On Monday after school and work, we got our Christmas tree. It’s a nice seven foot tall fir tree. We decorated it for Family Home Evening. It’s always fun decorating the tree. Our ornaments are mostly homemade. As we take out the ornaments we tell the stories associated with each one – where it came from or who made it and when. Some of the oldest ornaments are not in very good shape anymore, but we carefully put them up. There are casualties every year and some ornaments are reluctantly retired. I have a box of nine fancy teardrop shaped ornaments that are among my favorites. I only have three left now. When we opened the box this year, we found that a chipmunk had used it for seed storage and in the process of depositing sunflower seeds there had broken most of them.
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| Our Christmas Tree |
We laugh at some of our ornaments – the ones made from gold-painted macaroni, the one made from a frozen orange juice lid and glitter coated twigs, the clay elephant whose trunk and three legs have fallen off, the lightbulb reindeer that has lost his felt antlers – but we love them and they all have a place on the tree. Some ornaments tug at our hearts as we hang them – the tatted snowflakes that Mindy made for us, the Baby’s First Christmas ornament for each of our children, the beaded ice skates that came from Mildred, the clothespin reindeer from the memorable year the Padoviches did the Twelve Days of Christmas for us. Our Christmas tree would never win an award for its beauty or its perfectly designed theme, but to us it is perfect and beautiful. Now that it is up and decorated, we like to play the “I See Something” game. Someone will say something like, “I see a purple pinecone,” and everyone else will scan the tree and the first to find it gets to go next. Once our Christmas tree is in place it finally really feels like Christmas. The wonderful smell of the pine, the beauty of the lights, and hundreds of memories hanging from the branches fills our house with love.
We had some odd weather last week. At first it was unusually cold. On Monday while we were out choosing our Christmas tree the temperature was near zero. By the time we went to bed that night, it was 11° below zero. It was that kind of cold that freezes the inside of your nose when you inhale. When it’s that cold, the snow is dry and squeaks like cornstarch when you walk on it. We usually don’t have deep cold like that until January or February. By the end of the week things had gone the other direction. The temperature rose into the 50's and we had rain. Weather like that is as unwelcome at this time of the year as is the sub-zero kind. In all the year the only time I really want snow on the ground is at Christmas. Remember last week I said that unless we had some freakish heat wave we would have a white Christmas – well, we had a freakish heat wave and from what I can see of the forecast, things won’t be very white here by Wednesday.
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| How things looked last week. |
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| How things look this week. |
Yesterday we crossed the Winter Solstice. That means today there was a few seconds more daylight than there was yesterday and we will keep gaining until we come to the glory days of May, June, and July.
We’ve finished all our Christmas obligations now. We went to Hannah’s Christmas violin recital on Thursday. She played “O Holy Night” and did a great job. That same night Josiah went caroling with the Boy Scouts. Friday was the annual high school talent show. Hannah played “O Holy Night” there too, this time to the accompaniment of the Guitar Ensemble. It was very nice. Then Hannah and Josiah sang in an a capella group. Then today we had the last of our performances at our Christmas Sacrament Meeting. Hannah and Josiah had parts to read. Hannah played “O Holy Night” again. I conducted the meeting. Stacey was the chorister. Now we can breathe a sigh of relief. No more obligations or performances. We can just sit back and relax.
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| Hannah at her recital. |
Saturday night we had our Howe/Shillig Christmas party. There were just the six of us, but we managed to make merry. We had some great treats. I made egg nog. Stacey made cookies and a hot bean dip. The Shilligs brought little barbequed wieners, a cheese ball, cookies, and Julie’s fabulous toffee. We had our little gift exchange. It was a very quiet party.
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| The Howe/Shillig Christmas Party |
There are a few items on the list of things we want to do as we enter the final days before Christmas. First of all, we will pick Miriam up at the airport tonight. She coming in to Buffalo on a late flight. We’re so excited that she’s coming home. Monday will be a baking day – lebkuchen, gingerbread, sand tarts, orange cookies – enough goodies to last us from Christmas Eve to New Years Eve. All week long there will be game playing. And happy conversations. And lots of music.
To all of you I wish a very Merry Christmas!
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| Merry Christmas from Josiah and Hannah! |
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| Merry Christmas from Stacey and Dan! |
