It is traditional in Oysterville for our little church – the centerpiece of the village – to celebrate each Christmas season with appropriate holiday finery.  Usually, the decorations involve greenery from the nearby woods – wreaths or swags on outer double doors and sweet smelling cedar boughs or bright holly inside.

No one is Oysterville is ‘assigned’ the task.  It just seems to “happen.”  In the seventies and eighties when my dad made the swags for our house, he made two extras for the double doors at the church.  Nyel carried that forward until a few years ago.

During the nineties and oughts, Leigh sometimes hosted an impromptu Christmas program.  (This usually occurred when her incredibly talented musical sisters were in town for the holidays.)  The word would spread and we would gather one evening to sing carols and take turns reading Dylan Thomas’s  A Child’s Christmas in Wales and the Christmas Story from the Bible. I always assumed that it was Leigh who festooned organ and piano with Christmas garlands for those occasions, but I never thought to ask.

Now that Bradley has entered our midst, he has inherited (by his own request, I might add) the church decorating project.  Now, the swags are replaced with wreaths which are made by Bradley’s mother’s gardening club as a fund-raising activity each year.  They are lovely and are placed, not only on the doors, but on each of the thirteen windows and, inside too, surrounding the old wall-mounted kerosene lamps.

This year, with new shutters and a fresh coat of paint, the church looks especially elegant.  Those who look closely will realize, furthermore, that there is a slight difference in the Christmas décor.  Rather than the usual bright red that we associate with the season, the ribbons on the wreathes exactly match the muted brick-red trim on the church – a subtle but elegant touch that is just perfect.  Those who know him just smile and nod their heads and say, “It’s so Bradley!”