Christmas 2007 Memories

Well, Christmas has passed. We are into the football bowl season, however I still have nuts in the nut bowls and cheese in the frig to work my way through before the holiday season officially closes. I end up reflecting each year on what has transpired in recent weeks. Presents have arrived via UPS, USPS, FedEx, or personal delivery. We have accumulated empty boxes that I always end up looking at thinking that perhaps I should save some so next year we don’t grow through the frustration we always do of not having the right size box to ship something in. I thought of that today as I burned the boxes in the burn barrel, too late.

Christmas is a time for children, thank goodness the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. I had a nice Christmas, got some nice toys to play with. I have a digital stop watch so I can measure the elapsed time of my daily walks. I have some nice sports gloves to keep my hands warm on the cool morning constitutionals. I have a new pair of binoculars to examine our feathered friends at the feeders. I have a nice long sleeve red and black plaid shirt that brings back memories from my youth when I was so enamored with the look of the deer hunters that prowled Munising in the red and black plaid hunting outfits. Yes, that was before the advent of “hunter orange.”

This was the year I rediscovered our Christmas tree. Several years ago Terry talked me into an artificial tree. Seeing that we have a small cabin with a vaulted ceiling we found a tree that is ten feet tall but only three feet in diameter at the bottom. It doesn’t take up much room but extends upward. This is its fourth year and I vowed to be the last, it was just starting to look a little tawdry to me. However this year I put it up while Terry was at work and got piddling around with it. I found that a lot of the branches had been bent from repeated storage, so I worked my way around the tree slowly straightening the branches and rearranging them into the more traditional shape. It looked so good I decided that we shall continue the use of that tree for at least another season or two.

Christmas Day brought daughters Tracy and Jessi to our home for dinner. With them came their new boyfriends. Some grandchildren showed up, and even Geoff, our son came and enjoyed the festivities. The brisket turned out well, the scalloped potatoes were nice and cheesy and good. The conversation was filled with hunting stories, kids antics, discussion of clothes styles, trying on footwear, modeling new robes, and mugging it up for the camera. A success!

I have actually grown to enjoy the day after better than Christmas Day. Everyone is gone, the house is quiet, I can explore the gifts, clean up some dishes that had to soak, and still listen to some Christmas music with the tree lights on. There was even a bowl game on in the evening with Central Michigan playing Purdue. It made me think of the trip Carol, Phyl and I took several years ago through the Lower Peninsula. We stayed in Mt. Pleasant one night and ate at a nice restaurant. After dinner we drove around the campus of Central Michigan and enjoyed the college scene. That was the trip we stopped in Kalamazoo and saw Aunt Gertrude, and spent a night in Traverse City and went out to dinner with Aunt Ann and Uncle Hollis. The trip was four days and three nights, but we piled up some memories and are grateful for the opportunity to have seen Aunt Ann even though she passed away several weeks later. At least we got to laugh at some old memories and enjoy some time together. The same is true for Aunt Gertrude, we pushed her in a wheel chair to the local ice cream place and had a treat and talked of old times.

So this Christmas memories are a mixture of old and new. But isn’t that the way it is?