Oh Christmas Tree!

We got our tree on a Saturday morning. By Saturday evening it was in the living room, in front of the window. I managed to get the lights on it that night. It took me three more days to get the rest of the decorations on it.

 

During those few days where it only had lights on it, I thought it was just beautiful. There is something so magical about the lights at Christmas time.

 

I think a lot of the emotions and the "spirit" of Christmas have to do with how we celebrated Christmas as children and how we celebrated Christmas with our own children when they were small.

 

Days later as I was putting the ornaments on the tree, I had a lot of memories of Christmases past. In the early 1980's I had two small children and worked at Ernst in the Brickyard Plaza in Salt Lake City. I worked for awhile in the garden shop and it's there that we sold all the Christmas decorations. I bought a lot of discounted decorations that year and when I get them out each year, I remember that time in my life.

 

As I hang the stockings I remember as a child in Rigby and later in Boise hanging our real stockings above the fireplace. Thank goodness for long knee high socks in those days. We used to get an orange and candy in our stockings, I don't remember what else. But I remember the year Santa put an orange in my children's Christmas stockings and they thought that was so odd.

Even though I don't have small children at home and I don't get a lot of company at my house, I still enjoy putting up my Christmas decorations. I love to sit in the evenings and look at the tree (and try not to think about the presents that still need to be wrapped).

 

Christmas is indeed a magical time of the year.