So I'm pretty stoked about this year's Christmas season.  Already.

I'm not really sure why -- it's not like this year is particularly different than any other years. It's not even cold yet. It's definitely not Thanksgiving yet. Several people have ranted recently about not wanting to see or hear anything Christmasy before the turkey's had a chance to cool (and digest). I understand that.

But I'm ready.  I have gift ideas popping up as I think of friends, an urge to find cool wrapping paper, and even a desire to do some serious Christmas baking. (I don't mind baking. I just hate the mess and rarely feel like spending 4 hours on my feet after 6 hours teaching.)  Found a great recipe for German stollen -- thinking of giving that a try, maybe with the help of a friend who knows something about breadmaking.

We are never at our own house on Christmas Day, and rarely are we even around at all once school's out. For years we've spent about every other Christmas with our friends in Arizona (now Oklahoma) -- that's the plan for this year.  I haven't decorated my own Christmas tree in 5 years probably. I think the last time we bought a tree was the year it iced/snowed and people lost their power for days. Things were crazy - had various friends stay while us when their power was out while we hosted a birthday party for someone else. I'm pretty sure I never really got around to putting much more on the tree except lights that year. When December 24th rolls around and your tree is still mostly green, it's hard to pull out boxes of ornaments and decorations only to pack them up a week later.  

Growing up, my mom loved Christmas and my dad thought it channeled leftover pagan rituals. (Weird stuff happens sometimes when your dad gets much of his theological training from radio preachers.  One of them convinced him Christmas trees are a holdover from pagan idolatry. Oh the joys of using a 400-year-old Bible translation.) I was around 7 or 8 at the time. Dad banned Christmas trees but didn't really mind the rest of the decorating. He always hung the huge lighted star in the front giant window of our house up on the mountain. I think that is my favorite Christmas decoration ever.  That, and we used to wrap the 2 wagon wheels that adorned the long, stone hearth of our living room fireplace with foil and trim them in red poinsettia lights -- I've never seen THAT anywhere else. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out! ha

Before some radio preacher ruined dad's appreciation of Xmas trees, we used to purchase live trees (ball & bag) which we could plant outside after the holiday season. My favorite were the blue spruce trees. The needles are a gorgeous blue-green that makes me think of snow, Pennsylvania mountain Christmases, and red cardinals sheltering in the branches. If I could find some place down here who sold the live ones, I'd have a new addition to our pitiful excuse for a yard....

Maybe they sell them in Oklahoma?

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