Merry Christmas

Last year at this time, I wrote a post for a private room I belong to.  I was feeling a multitude of emotions at the time as I huddled in my big chair before the fireplace.  I could see images in the flickering firelight of my little ones on Christmas morning, their eyes wide with delight and anticipation as I unhooked their stockings from the mantel, and my father’s sly look as he snitched a date pinwheel cookie from the round red tin they’d been packed in. I saw myself at the railing overlooking my sister’s living room as her daughter and son-in-law played with my great-nephews, and my mom as she used to be, upright and strong of body and mind, lifting my youngest daughter in her arms for a look into the fondue pot where sweet, rich chocolate melted. And my nephew, asleep on the couch amid all the noise.

In their faces were shades of all the Christmases past and promises of all the Christmases yet to be, the future generations of children who would grow our family beyond the capacity of my house to hold them all. But not beyond the capacity of my heart, and that was the thought at the core of my post last year in that private writing room. That this season is not about the shopping or the crowds or the gifts.  It’s not even about the religion, really, despite its religious beginnings.

It’s about the love.

For my oldest friends, and my very newest ones.  For the people I care about the most deeply in both happiness and heartache.  For the children we’ve lost and those who remain, and for the children yet to come. It’s about the giving of ourselves to those who look to us for strength and hope, and the doing of things that bring those people a little bit of sunshine.

My heart is full again this year remembering past times with our happy, noisy crowd under the same roof, all twenty-eight of us. There is sadness because my nephew is gone now, and Christmas will not be the same, ever, without him, and there is longing for those who are far away and can’t be here to share the joy and the laughter.

But mostly, there is love.

In the quiet and peace of this night, as I smile with those who are near to me and send my thoughts and dreams and wishes to those who are not, my heart overflows with it.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

A Griswold Christmas

Christmas is a time of stress for a lot of people, so finding something to laugh about is always good.  This year we are having a National Lampoon Christmas and this is too good a story to remain untold. It all started with the lighting of the tree…

Several years ago, we bought an artificial tree.  Nice and simple. I’m not a big artificial tree fan. I like the smell of a real tree, but the townhouse we’re in won’t allow them.  So thinking to kill two birds with one stone, I not only bought an artificial tree but made sure it was pre-lit.  No tangle of wires to worry about. We didn’t count on the added weight that all that attached lighting would add when carting the tree pieces up and downstairs. But it was only once a year and we figured it was worth it not to have to untangle strings of lights. We also figured the bulbs would last for a long time.  Not so much. A bunch of them burned out this year as soon as we plugged the tree in.

Luckily, the manufacturer had included spare bulbs and the tiniest fuses I’ve ever seen for such an occasion. The sheer number of replacements that were included probably should have been a warning sign, but I was oblivious at the time. After trying to replace several of the now burned-out bulbs, I figured out why the manufacturer had provided so many. They were nearly impossible to replace. Pulling them out wasn’t too bad, but I can’t count how many of the baby-hair-sized contact wires I broke just trying to get the first bulb in. I struggled with it for about fifteen minutes before giving up and covering the unlighted area with lots and lots of ornaments and icicles so you hardly even notice the lack of lights.

That problem solved (or at least shelved for another Christmas), it was time to put the angel on top of the tree. The old lighted one I’d had since the kids were little had seen better days and nearly set fire to the house the last year we had used her, so a few years back I replaced her with another. This one was dressed in a golden robe over her white dress and held candles in both hands that would light up just like her skirts.  Or at least, she was supposed to.  Plugged her in, no lights.  Of course, none of the replacement bulbs for the tree would fit, being made of a proprietary design.

We got the bright idea of scavenging the bulbs from a string of white lights we wouldn’t be using this year. At first we replaced one bulb at a time and plugged her in to see if we’d found the broken one, but then we eventually got the idea to just replace them all.  Five minutes later and we were done. The bright white flash that appeared when we plugged her in this time had all the earmarks of a heavenly sign.  The angel now rests atop our tree, lights removed.  She looks rather pretty up there, and you can barely see the singed area on the bottom of her skirts.

I’m thinking that maybe next year I’ll get a nice silver star, the glittery kind that doesn’t require electricity…