It was time to go get the Christmas tree and start decorating at our house last weekend - and, how things have changed over the years.
Our tree is always a fresh cut Fraser Fir, about 7 feet tall, and they seem to get heavier, as well as more expensive, every year.
But, once its on the stand and in the house, its worth it. The fragrance of a Fraser Fir has become synonymous with Christmas at our place. Along with the aroma of Sandra's candles and, of course, her holiday baking.
Mom's kitchen was also a source of great delight at Christmas time as I was growing up. I'm sure it was that way most places. Three things we could always count on: a chocolate layer cake with pecans atop the icing on each layer, and old fashion fruit cake and, my favorite, a Japanese fruit cake. Sandra, bless her heart, has seen to it every year of our married life that there's a Japanese fruit cake at our house at Christmas.
The first Christmas tree I can recall was a small scrub pine, the long leaf kind, cut from woods surrounding the small house we lived in at the time near Tifton, Georgia. The stand for it was fashioned by Dad from a couple of pieces of wood. It didn't have to be very big; the tree never was, usually about 4-5 feet tall. The tree went up about one week before Christmas and came down the day after. Nowadays, ours goes up as close to Dec. 1 as possible and doesn't come down until around Jan. 1.
Decorations on the ones I had growing up consisted of a string of colored lights, some icicles , and some red balls. Some city slicker relatives had bubble lights and a big star atop their tree each year. The bubble lights were fascinating.
Did you ever have one of those silver aluminum trees with red balls and a red light that spotlighted the tree? We didn't but I had friends that did. I'll always remember a warning that came with such trees cautioning against putting electric lights on it for fear of bzzzzzzzzt! Always wondered if anyone ever attempted that.
The tree we have at our house now becomes, once its up and the lights are attached, a showplace of memories, weighted down with ornaments of all kinds. We've collected ornaments through the years from nearly every place we've visited, most of them stateside. There are handmade ornaments from Lisa's childhood and Sandra's cross-stitch ornaments. Some I even hand-painted --- by filling in the colored coded spaces.
Memories. It's what Christmas is all about for me.
THIS 'N' THAT
*Post Script: In my last column, written in early September, I wondered how long it would be before I saw the first Christmas decorations/sales displays showed up in local stories. Turns out it was the next day.
*One other holiday note: At least one major retailer in Gainesville is apparently taking no chances this year after the Holiday Greetings/Merry Christmas flap last year. It has side-by-side signs all over its stores proclaiming both Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, with Feliz Navidad thrown in for good measure.
*Election fallout (no pun intended, here): Best election campaign slogan: Alabama political columnist Bob Ingram reports that a well-endowed write-in Libertarian candidate for governor of Alabama appeared on the campaign trail sporting a T-shirt which had pictures of the other gubernatorial candidates on them
and with the message: "More of these boobs and less of these boobs."
(Ken Stanford is Newesroom Manager for WDUN NEWS TALK 550, MAJIC 1029, SPORTS RADIO 1240 THE TICKET and AccessNorthGa.com.)
Friday
October 25th, 2024
7:34PM
