My favorite Christmas things

With wind and snow raging outside all day Saturday, it was a perfect day to prepare the inside for Christmas (finally).

Someone in our house, I'm not pointing fingers at my husband, is kind of a Scrooge and wouldn't mind sweeping the month of December under the rug (like I need anything more under there) but I love getting my Christmas decorations out. Poor Austin had to haul everything from the basement for me so he probably wouldn't have mind doing without it, also.

Oh well, guys - mom wins.

With lack of space, and as a way of saving me the frustration of separating the artificial color-coded branches of our full-sized tree ( I usually ended up putting some of the long branches at the top because I mistakenly put a pink-tipped branch in the orange-tipped pile), I put up a smaller tree, all in one piece that is placed on a card table. The tree was my dad's and he used it for years and years. With him gone now for two Christmases, it makes him feel a little closer.

Unlike some Christmas tree decorators, who want all the ornaments and tinsel to have a theme, I like to dig out ornaments with meaning. I put the "baby's first Christmas" ornaments up each year - 1990, 1992, 1993 and 1995 - and even hang the "our first Christmas" ornament my husband and I received as a gift 22 years ago.

And there are many other ornaments belonging to each of my kids that make it on the tree - the little basketball player that Jordan drew glasses on with a marker when he was young, to make it look more like him; the Winnie the Pooh ornament belonging to Austin because during his young years, Pooh was his favorite; the pencil thin Barbie ornament I bought for Marissa many years ago and the tiny cowboy hat ornament bought for Meghan when she was horse-crazy.

And there are the ornaments made in elementary school - the mittens with gold-glitter names on them; a puzzle piece wreath framing a young Jordan; and an angel bearing Austin's name.

I like it this way - when our kids begin new chapters in their lives - in other words, when they give us grandchildren - these ornaments will be retired and new ones will go up.

I also love unwrapping my Santa Clauses - I have over 50 of them - and placing them around the house. They make me smile. Santa is represented in a number of occupations - gardening, fishing, as a baker holding a Christmas cake, a tough-looking biker (bandanna and leather jacket) holding a teddy bear, clam digging, firefighting, farming (dressed in overalls and holding a pig in his arms), a cowboy, a tennis player, a golfer, and even beach dwelling Santas - one sporting a surf board in one hand and a tropical drink in another, one relaxing in an inner-tube with swim trunks on and even one sporting a Hawaiian shirt and holding a tiki torch and refreshment.

One of my other favorite pieces is a candle that is about 35-years old. Yes, my mom bought it that may years ago because it was scented with her favorite perfume. You know, that candle still smells of that perfume. My mom has been gone for 31 years and once again, it is a wonderful reminder of her when I get that candle out - I stop and smell the candle, which by the way, has never been burned, several times throughout the season.

But my very favorite piece to unbox is the nativity set which is displayed in a wonderful stable my dad constructed for me many years ago out of old barn wood.

Christmas is all about your favorite things and I am surrounded by mine, including my family. I hope you are as well.