Count down to Christmas

Couchwood dining room buffet & secretary, Christmas 2011

by Pat Laster

 

                By the time this is posted, it will be almost too late to think about getting the house clean and decorated, the molasses balls mixed, mashed and cooked, the mincemeat pie baked, the gifts wrapped, and still have enough holiday joy left (or restored) to welcome the folks from Florida. Or from wherever your relatives live.

                A week ago Thursday, my house was a mess. (Wasn’t everyone’s?) Boxes brought down from the attic held ornaments, Santa Clauses—one with a sleigh and a lone deer from the old, old set of three– plastic icicles from the Paulus grandmother and plastic-circles-with-Christmas-figures-inside from the Couch grandmother.

                By Sunday night after the morning choir service of Lessons and Carols and the church’s evening Family Night (Sights and Sounds of Christmas), my molasses ball ingredients still sat on the countertop. The dry ingredients had been sifted three day ago and covered.    

                Our tree this year is not the expensive (at the time) pre-lit job. That one's still in the attic where I hauled it last year after grandson Billy broke it into its three components so I could manhandle them up the stairs after he’d gone back to HSU.

                No, this year, the “tree” will be my late mother’s 6-foot tall Norfolk Pine that has miraculously stayed alive. Never mind that several branches fell off as I was shaking it before deciding whether to use it. Oh, what the heck, I might as well be different this year. Give the family something to talk about and visit over.

              To begin, I spiral-wrapped the three major stalks with silver tinsel. Then, selecting weightless ornaments, I hung them from the branches. Cutting red tinsel into 9-in strips, I draped them over the tallest limbs (a kitchen stepstool was required).

              No lights, of course, but I directed a high-intensity desk lamp upward and it helped. If any more branches should fall before Christmas, I might be left with a large Charlie Brown tree. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

             On Monday morning, the molasses-ball stuff still sat on the countertop. But I had other fish to fry. I’d “dressed” the dining table but not the buffet and the two china cabinets. So that morning, I kept saying aloud, “Dining Room,” when I’d want to stop for a different project. As I write, the buffet is done as are the two china cabinets--one in reds and the other in blues. And, the molasses balls after baking turned into cookies.

             Gifts are yet in the bedroom closet—or unbought. But I know what I’m looking for and where to find them. One luncheon date today (Wednesday--I received another invitation for the same date but declined) is all that’s on the week’s schedule. That is, until family from Florida arrives Friday.

          Attending holiday programs of the Arkansas Chamber Singers, the Horace Mann Arts and Science Magnet School, the Hendrix College choir, and singing in a church choir presentation of Lessons and Carols infused many with as true a meaning of the season as is possible, given the horrible massacre in Connecticut.
                May the God of love and peace be with us every one this Christmas. Amen and amen.
c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press, Benton AR