Christmas

My favorite time of the year is Christmas. For one month, one-twelfth of a whole year, the tree stands in the living room, twinkling with white, red, and green lights. Snowmen, Santa Clause figurines, nutcrackers, and more collected over the years fill the shelves and cover the walls, reminding the family what is coming December 25th. In my family, it really starts on Thanksgiving, not December 1st. On that day spent with family, cooking an assortment of food eaten in fifteen minutes, we prepare for Christmas by putting up the tree and other decorations.

This year, my three-year-old niece joined the fun. She “helped” my dad put up the Christmas tree, an artificial one that has been in the family for at least eight years. Impatiently, she ignored our efforts to engage her in the Thanksgiving Day Parade shown on TV (“Look, Madison, Dora’s on TV! She’s so big!” “That’s why she’s a balloon, Grammy.”). Later on, she decided that, like her Mommy, she does not like turkey. Amused, my sister and I realized that none of us likes turkey, even though we somehow end up with two or three every year. She says we should make lasagna instead, but for some reason I cannot picture lasagna and crescent rolls as a good combination; and, of course, you cannot have Thanksgiving without crescent rolls.

After we finish our turkey, stuffing, vegetables, and tin can shaped cranberry sauce, we migrate to the living room to put up the Christmas decorations. The twinkling lights already twist around the tree’s green branches, but that still leaves room for our boxes of ornaments. Madison loves this part, eagerly hanging all the little figurines we hand her, usually on the same branch. She manages a cluster of five Disney characters on the right side of the tree. At the end of the day, our house looks more like Christmas than Thanksgiving. We had a busy, fun day together as a family. In a month we will have another day, Christmas, to spend as a family. Until then, we can all enjoy the festive Christmas decorations inside and outside.