Merry Christmas Friends!

There comes a time in getting ready for a holiday when you are all ready.

Nothing more needs to be done.

Everything is in its place.

This is what I am experiencing tonight.

This is not what I usually experience.  Usually I am cleaning those darn panes of glass on the chandelier from which Buffy likes to swing a few minutes before the guests come for dinner. Or I am dusting. Or  adjusting the chairs around the dinner table so that everyone has a seat. In other words, I am a champion procrastinator.

Oh yes. If they gave out letters for this in high school, I would have earned one.  If they listed Latin words of recognition after my name in the college commencement program, mine would have been ” procrastinus excellus” instead of summa cum laude. (Not that I had summa cum laude after my name, I did not)  And, if they gave bonuses at work to those of us who waited until the last moment to get something done, I would be a very rich woman and probably be able to hire someone else to write my blog.  But what would be the fun in that?

So, you get the point, I am not usually done with everything. Or even somewhat close to being done with everything. In fact most of the time I can’t even touch being done with everything “with a thirty nine and a half foot pole!”  Thanks, Dr. Seuss!

This is a new experience and I am happy to spend it with you!

*****Christmas Memories*****

This is my Santa pin. It’s made of a hard plastic,   the paint is wearing off, and  it looks like it did when I was little. I used to wear it on my pajamas on Christmas Eve, the only night of the year that I was allowed to sleep with my big sister.

This was a momentous occasion! My sister was eight and a half years older than me and this night was the only night  we got to sleep in her double bed together.

Well, she slept. I was wide awake.

Why?  Because she waited until we had been in the dark for a while and said, “Wait, Shh!  Did you hear that?”

“What?!”

“Santa’s reindeer on the roof!”

And then she went to sleep  and I was wide awake for a long,  l    o   n     g   time, straining to hear those hoof beats.

Another time she quietly reached down and plucked a coil from the springs below the mattress. A big one so it would have a low sound. And then it would be, ” Did you hear that?”

“Uh huh.”

“What was that?

“I dunno.”

“I don’t know either.”

Then she’d go to sleep and I’d be wide awake fearful of whatever was making that sound.

Sometimes she’d stay awake for another five minutes and pluck it again for good measure before going to sleep as I lay awake and stiff with not moving a muscle.

Ahhhh. Good times.

****** Waking up on Christmas morning*******

Once we woke up on Christmas morning, we sat at the top of the stairs and waited until Dad told us we could come down. He had to start the fire and probably the coffee before we were allowed to come down the stairs. And we had to stay up at the top where we couldn’t see any part of what was going on downstairs: there were rules!

One of the Christmas rules was that we went to the midnight service and then came home, waiting to open gifts until Christmas morning.  Others opened gifts on Christmas  Eve, before they came to that late service. It seemed to me that the world was divided into those two camps, similar to those of Protestant and Catholic.   I hoped I married someone who opened gifts on Christmas Day; I didn’t want to have a “mixed ” marriage!

When we finally got downstairs, we went to the stockings “hung by the chimney with care.” Thanks, Clement Moore.  These were my sister’s old knee hi’s that she contributed to the cause. Why knee hi’s?  For more room for Santa, of course. And why old knee hi’s? Because they hung on an old board with nails in it that was placed carefully on the mantel.

Santa always put an orange and some unshelled nuts in the bottom of the stockings. They were lumpy stockings! The first thing we kids did on that morning was to put the oranges back in the fridge and the nuts back in the bowl with the nutcracker. I laugh about that now.  Then we took out the  new toothbrushes that Santa brought and went to the tree to begin the passing out of packages, which was my job as the youngest.

It was uncomfortable because we did it round by round, and some people did not have as many presents to open. I remember feeling badly as package passer outer. I wanted it to all be equal amounts of packages. “The guilt was strong with this one.” Thanks, George Lucas.

After the presents were all opened, we sat down to the best ever Christmas tree bread, orange juice, and coffee for Mom and Dad. Oh, and lots of butter for the Christmas tree bread; we were, after all,  Swedish. The Christmas tree bread was made from a sweet roll dough with the candied fruits added along with a white frosting which was more like an icing when Mom would warm up the bread in the oven.  And then it would run down the branches and pool on the cookie sheet  to be rescued later by me.

Mom would make many of these trees and give them to friends and family, always saving one  for our New Year’s Day breakfast. When I had a family of my own I did this also until my family unceremoniously told me one year that they didn’t like Christmas tree bread. So, I stopped making them.  We still have the butter and orange juice, though.

Just kidding.

****And finally******

I always brought all my dolls downstairs and sat them on the sofa nearest the tree so they could greet Santa when he came.  Didn’t you?

Which brings me to the RC helicopter that very nearly clipped me this morning in my very own living room. The cats are intrigued. The hubster is intrigued. I would just as soon that they be intrigued in the garage! Who’s with me on this?

I wish you a very warm and snuggly Merry Christmas and a bright and cheery New Year!  And have a Marvelous Monday!

Love,

Janet