Now I Can Finally Listen to Christmas Music Legitimately

It's that time of year - now that Thanksgiving is past, the Christmas holiday season officially begins. Now I can legally annoy my coworkers by playing all my Christmas music I loaded on my Zune I got this week to replace my dead mp3 player. I only loaded Christmas music on it - nothing else until January 2. Jim Parker loves this time of year, especially when I play the Jingle Bell Dog song on repeat, over and over again - its so easy to get a rise out of him, ha ha.

Of course, Christmas now is very different from Christmas past. Back in the day, the holiday season included many different 'traditions'. We'd usually put up the lights either right after Thanksgiving or early December. This involved climbing up into the attic and finding all the old boxes with Christmas decorations in them - usually took awhile to do this. When we first lived in Arlington, we had some cool blue lights, but Dad didn't like them :) so we replaced them with red ones to outline the house. One year we got some lights to place in the shrubs in the front yard, red white and green. I would always try to mix the green and red ones so the shrubs would look like a holly plant with berries at night - well, that was the theory at least. Dad would always put the lights up on the house - one year he fell off the stool while Robin and I were inside and hurt his ankle or something. From the way he tells it, you would have thought we could hear his cries for help and deliberately left him outside to freeze in the cold weather. It didn't happen that way, of course.

There was a giant plastic light-up Santa I always liked - we'd put it on the front porch in front of the bedroom window. I wonder whatever happened to it? In later years, I would put lights around the front two windows to outline them, which looked cool. One year we decided to make a Christmas tree near the curb by hanging a strand of green lights in a tree - with mixed results.

Finally, the time came when Dad let me put ALL the lights up myself, the way I wanted to. The large red lights went up on the house just like always, but the smaller red, green and white lights got arranged differently in the shrubs - I tried to keep all the colors separate for some reason. One night Karyn came over and remarked that as she pulled in the driveway she thought she'd come to the Mexican Embassy (red white green).

Don't get me wrong - it sounds like I was doing all the work. Robin helped out too, as did Dad when I hit a few snags. So it was more of a joint effort than you'd think by reading this - just wanted to put that disclaimer in before I get some nasty comments, lol.

After the lights were done, the time to do the tree would be upon us. First, that meant a trip to Kennedale or Mansfield, somewhere in that area, to the Christmas Tree farm. Now, in early years, we had a fake tree - not aluminum, a regular fake tree. And that was cool, but the real trees were so much better. First, after arriving at the tree farm, we'd get a hayride out to the field of trees, with saw in hand and a cup of hot apple cider. After roaming around for hours ;) we'd find the perfect tree (ala Clark Griswold). Usually at that point Robin and I would become bored and wander off, leaving Dad to cut the tree down himself. Then we'd take the tree back to the farm house, where they would put it on a shaker to get any needles off, then bag it up. Mom would look at the craft section, I'd get another cup of cider, and then we'd leave for home to set up the tree.

Bringing the tree inside and placing it in the tree stand always meant getting sap on you - and that sap didn't just go away with a little soap and water, no sir. But at least it smelled pine fresh. Mom would spray some water and baby oil mixture on the tree to keep it from drying out, and making it smell so very good (pine baby oil doesn't sound that great, but it is - wish they made an air freshener with that smell). Then it was time to decorate the tree. First I would put on the old Christmas records (in early early years - later on it would be the Christmas CDs). I can still recall many of the ornaments: the astronaut Santa, some of those make-it-yourself-in-the-oven sparkly plastic stained glass looking ones, and a whole lot more than I feel like describing. There was a small nativity scene - a 3d manger and baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph that I always hung on the tree and stuck a blue light inside, so it glowed like the moon was shining, or so I thought.

And then the decorating would be over - and as the days went by, the presents would pile up. Robin and I would gather the presents around us on several occasions and examine them one by one, trying to figure out what they were (or just see how many we had!) One year I was falling waaay behind Robin - I thought it was going to be the Worst Christmas Ever, but it turned out somewhat differently - more on that later.

One year, for some reason, Robin and decided one tree just wasn't enough, so we decorated a ficus tree in my room (or was it Robin's? I forget) with lights and red balls. Oh well, it looked cool, for a ficus Christmas tree.

So then the great Day would approach - finally it would be Christmas Eve! Now, originally, so I'm told, Mom and Dad and whoever else got together one C.E. long long ago (before I was around, and way before Robin was) and had some sandwiches and finger foods for CE dinner instead of a meal, because the next day would mean a huge dinner. And then it became a tradition - and THEN I came around and it turned into a major ordeal for Mom, ha ha. Christmas Eve would go something like this: we (meaning Mom mostly) would cook all morning and afternoon - just appetizer stuff, mind you, but ALOT of it - and we'd finally be ready to eat (officially) around 3 PM. I would make the sweet and sour hot dogs in a mustard/plum jelly sauce, Robin would make the fruit and dip, and Mom would make everything else. Some peeps would come over, but it was mostly just us. After the 6:00 news (which gave a Santa update, showing his position in Northern Europe, making his way to America), we'd all pile in the car and go looking at lights, and I'd bring a cup of Mom's hot spiced cranberry punch along. We'd drive all over Arlington - past the neighborhood which decorated as the 12 Days of Christmas (each house was a different day, pretty cool), past Santaland near Young junior high, past the house in Tiffany Woods that looked like the house from Christmas Vacation, and alot of other places. Then we'd come back, feast some more on the delicious food, and tune in to the 10 PM news on channel 5 (KXAS) to watch Harold Taft (unti he died - Robin probably won't remember him, but I do) give the weather forecast. And at the end, Harold Taft would break in with the latest Santa report - he'd go to the radar, and Santa would be shown flying into DFW. As a little kid, it was so cool - that meant I had to go to bed quickly before Santa came! And that was the awful part - I never could go to sleep, I would be so excited.

One year, I woke up around 2:30 AM - and couldn't go back to sleep. So I crept into Robin's room, woke her up, and we both got Mom and Dad up - Christmas at 3 AM!!! We had all the presents open and breakfast eaten, and it was STILL DARK outside. Dad was ready for a nap by 9 AM. I was told never to do that again. Now, the only way I'd be up that early for anything is if I just stayed up all night - my how the times change!

Of course, the holidays mean very different things to me now. We still do the C.E. party-like thing, still go see lights after eating, and I still take some of Mom's punch with me if there's any left. Okay, so maybe everything hasn't changed! But now, instead of driving around town to look at lights, I go to Oklahoma, near Rattan, where this monument company (for graves!) decorates with over a million lights - that's where I took the photo above. It's pretty cool, and free! (See pic to the right, also - nothing says Merry Christmas like a festive tombstone!) And I go caroling with friends all over town - that's always fun. One year, we were headed to an elderly lady's house (she was too disabled to go to church much) and Dennis got lost and we went to the wrong home - this strange woman opened the door and we burst out singing like we meant to go there. Good times. And then another year, we were at a VERY old man's house (I'll call him J.R. to protect his name, but some of you loyal Readers out there will know of whom I speak), and right before we started singing, Colby remarks to me that J.R. looks alot like Yoda - all old, wrinkled, and maybe a little green. Now it wasn't a nice thing to say, but it was kinda true - and I couldn't help but laugh and laugh and laugh, because he DID look like Yoda.

Two years ago, I rang bells for the Salvation Army, along with Lindsey (Colby's oldest brother). We were assigned to Sears - which faces north - and guess what blew in the day we rang? A fierce blue norther - dang it was freezing!!! Lindsey brought his guitar, thinking he'd play some Christmas songs. Nope - too cold for that. We had no gloves, but Sears was happy to sell us some! Finally our relief came (Selena, pictured here with Lindsey) - we were so cold, we'd taken to ringing the bells with our hands stuffed in our pockets - the bell would barely stick out. It looked goofy, but it kept our hands warm - well, not warm, but not as cold.

Jeez, this post went on forever - all I wanted to say was Christmas time is here, officially. Oh well, I digressed - get over it ;)