Welcome Christmas!

I can remember being a little girl at Christmas time. The day after Thanksgiving, Daddy would take our newly flocked tree and set it in the corner of the living room. I would find a spot amongst the boxes being unloaded around the tree. My mother would have the Chipmunks Christmas tunes playing on the stereo. With my head on my hands I would lay across the arm of the couch, offering every few minutes to help my mother. I would stare into the open boxes. There were boxes within boxes. Hallmark boxes were printed with ornament images and I’d sit wondering if the ornament within looked just as the picture portrayed. Shoeboxes, striped boxes, old brown boxes were marked with my mother’s handwriting. I’d wait impatiently for her to open each box, unwrapping from the tissue paper all of the figures we loved to see. After what seemed like a lifetime to me, my mother would turn and ask with a knowing smile if I’d like to hang an ornament. She would reach into the largest brown box and retrieve the one ornament I was allowed to hang each year. I would reach for the ornament eagerly, noting the character’s little hat and cape. I can’t remember when the tiny “Rescuers” mouse had found its way into my parents’ collection, but it was always exciting to see her. I would hang the ornament and ask if I could help some more, knowing full well I had just hung my only ornament.
As the years passed, my parents began new traditions. For a few years, my parents took us to Shreveport. There we would visit “The Christmas Store”. My sister and I were allowed to pick out one ornament each while my mother began collecting more for us. We would walk from tree to tree studying the ornaments and looking through the baskets on the floor. We usually chose ballerinas. Even now, we pull from our own decoration boxes the ornaments we chose so long ago.
At this time of year, I can find myself all alone in a room and yet feel surrounded by old friends. Memories from all of the years past come rushing back to me before the Thanksgiving turkey has been bought and they stay with me until the new year. Whatever bad days are had, whatever disappointments may occur, they all fade away as something from my past reminds me to be cheerful. I can’t remember a year when Christmas wasn’t filled with excitement. More importantly though, it was a time filled with love. Trips to see Christmas lights, sugar cookies, late night Christmas movies- as great as all of these things are, none of it would have meant much at all if it hadn’t been for the love behind it. As I grew up, I found that allot of our Christmas seasons were filled with some sort of stress (usually involving our extended family), but I never would have known it. Whatever craziness was going on, my parents kept hidden from us. Even when I did begin to learn of it as it occurred, they made the effort to have it forgotten. They succeeded too, because looking back I can’t recall a single disappointing season.
The holiday season has arrived. While my mother begins to make her shopping list for Thanksgiving, we also begin preparing for Christmas. All that we’ve known and loved throughout these years has come back to welcome us into the season. Cards, gifts, traditions abound and we hardly know where to begin. While it is Christmas Day we await, it is everyday until then that we will have to enjoy. Together with my family how can I possibly dismiss the love that surrounds us?