10 Ways I Know It's Christmas.

In the past few days . . .

1. Decorated the house and picked out the annual perfect tree at Home Depot. $24 7' Douglas Fir. These trees are fresh and last well into the New Year. (Side story - I'd given up on the Douglas fir because all they seemed to have left was little 6' trees. But the tween forged through the stacked up inventory, to emerge triumphant with the last taller tree in the pile. So she's the Christmas tree elf this year!)

2. Ordered the last Christmas gifts. Yay.

3. Knitting madly to finish teacher gifts and something special for my mom.

4. Listening to Christmas music on Live365 - I'm a huge fan of streaming radio and music broadcasts on the internet. I listen to Sky FM's free classical music at work and enjoy jazz and folk at home.

5. A Christmas Story has started popping up on TV. Hello, Ralphie - it's great to see you and your folks again.

6.  The kids are cramming for finals. Nothing like added stress to make the holiday break even more of a relief.

7.  Chrismons! I've been working with the ever-energetic and wonderful Laura to coordinate a 17-year tradition - Chrismons hand-made by the Presbyterian Women at St. Luke's. This Sunday we'll attend both services and hand more than a hundred to the children of the church.

8.  Christmas cards are arriving. I mailed ours this weekend and now look forward to catching up with family and friends via photo cards and annual letters.

9.  Christmas-centered services at church. Ah, the warm embrace of scripture, familiar carols, children's festive clothes, the Living Nativity, holiday sweaters, fellowship parties, and the lighting of the Advent candles. Simply wonderful.

10. Baking, baking, baking. Snowball cookies and buckeyes, cheese straws and pumpkin bread, peppermint bark and fudge. Yum.

Ho, ho, ho!

We need a bigger tree

We just finished decorating the Christmas tree and I did some proactive organizing to ease the post-holiday clean-up.

We have WAY too many ornaments for a normal 7 1/2' tree (under $28 at Home Depot - a gorgeous Douglas fir!). And we love every one of them.

Why?

• Two Chrismons a year, made by the women of St. Luke's Presbyterian Church. Nine years in the pew, 18 Chrismons so far, and each set unique.
• A huge collection presented by T's mom through the years, first individual ones, then a family ornament. I just counted - we have more than two dozen. They're particularly precious because she has passed on and the collection will not grow.
• A souvenir ornament from each place we visit. We have ornaments from Baltimore, New York City, Kiawah, Philadelphia, Boston, Salem NC, Disney World, Universal Studios . . . placing them on the tree brings back such happy memories.
• An annual ornament for A and AG, commemorating something special about that year. A has 16 so far and AG has 11.
  
• The most precious of all - ornaments made by the kids or featuring their baby, toddler, and preschool photos. The durability of fragile paper footprints and washable paint-thumbprints on baked cookie dough is amazing.
• Ornament Exchange party treasures and white elephants - I remember each and every party. A favorite? A completely narcissistic "Garage Sale Santa" - the big guy has an armful of finds from garage sales. I bought it, placed it into the mix of the ornament exchange, and managed to win it back!

Since we simply don't have room for a kazillion treasured keepsakes, I suggested we place our favorites on the tree, then organized the others by giver and occasion. The Chrismons are going to be hung on ribbon draped between the family room and kitchen.

Excess often embarrasses me - I try very hard not to be an accumulator of things just for the sake of having them. This is an exception. Taking out the ornaments once a year is a nostalgic visit to happy times and an investment in future days when the kids are grown, we've passed on, but memories continue to connect us.