Ready! Set! Christmas!

     For the thirty-nine years of my teaching career, gearing up for Christmas was always the most stressful time of the school year.  Mostly, I taught a first, second, third multigrade and by the beginning of December we were already deep into rehearsals for Christmas programs, making presents for our parents, decorating halls and walls, and speaking carefully of Santa lest there were some among us who were still firm believers.  All of which, I hasten to add, had to be squeezed in around the edges of the main business at hand which was the teaching/learning that school is all about.
     On the homefront, getting ready for the holiday was often on serious hold until the Christmas break, and then it was scurry-to-the-max to get ready.  I remember being sick of the whole thing by then, but pulling it together for the sake of my own kids – always successfully and in fine style, as I remember – but usually just in the nick of time.
     Some years, we came up to Oysterville for Christmas and that was far easier.  My folks made all the necessary preparations and we blew in a few days ahead of time to a magical, old-fashioned yuletide celebration – no worries on our part.  It’s the kind of celebration we have tried to continue through the years but, I must say, the bar was set extraordinarily high.   My mom claimed it was the kind of Christmas she remembered from her own childhood – right down to some of the very same treasured decorations and familiar recipes.
     It stands to reason, that now that I’m retired and have the leisure to begin getting ready sooner, it shouldn’t be such a last minute thrash.  Truth to tell, though, it usually is.  I just don’t feel right about getting the house sparkled and garlanded until mid-month at the earliest.
     This year, however, our friends, the Rose City Mixed Quartet, are coming to do a House Concert on the 11^th – a concert with a Christmas theme – and I want the house to be ready.  So yesterday I took Steps One and Two.  The poinsettias are in place, and the ever-growing collection of wind-up toys are poised for action.
     Those wind-up toys represent years of stocking stuffers – one in each Christmas stocking for the last twenty-some years.  They probably began as son Charlie’s idea and have become the present generation’s contribution to our family holiday traditions.  It seems fitting that they were in the first Christmas box I unpacked yesterday.  Finally, I am winding up for Christmas early!