Christmas on its way..

I'm decorating for Christmas, and it doesn't matter that probably the only people who will notice are JC and me. It used to be that I would scramble from Thanksgiving to the first Saturday in December, emptying all the surfaces in the house and refilling them with Christmas greenery and red birds and candles and ornaments and stuffed animals. I'd bake frantically--one year I actually counted 110 dozen cookies!--and pored over the old punch recipes and gathered ingredients (and a new mixing bucket) for the eggnog we made religiously each year for the Christmas party.

Alas, the party is no more. It disappeared around 2005, I think--though it might have been '04. The last one was at the short-lived Del Ray house, after which we decided we just couldn't do it any more.  The house was too small and the invitation list (and the workload) was too big.

So, it's different now. Decorating the tree is a two-person job, and the variety of cookies has decreased precipitously. We haven't made eggnog in far too long, and there are fewer stockings hanging on the mantel. The pressure to have it all done by the Scottish Walk weekend is gone. But I still have the compulsion to make it look like Christmas inside. Which means that the Nativity set is assembled in the living room, and the wreath is in the foyer, this year surrounded by books and typewriters, in addition to the requisite Santa. Coyote wears a Santa hat in his chair by the fireplace and Grumpy Santa has a new plaid reindeer who should be able to make anyone smile. The Grinch has his hat on, too, along with a multitude of sheep, Babar, and Curious George. The dining room has my collection of cut glass, each piece of which holds a red Christmas ball or two, just to signify the season. And the living room mantel is decked with newly-polished silver sugar bowls and creamers and teapots containing greens and candy canes.

I'm getting out the Christmas dishes, too. (What!! You don't have Christmas dishes??!!??) and putting the plain white everyday ones into temporary storage. There are candy-cane-striped placemats and gold-and-silver runners for the table, red pillows on the sofas, and Christmas music on the iPod I attach to the speaker. I'm baking cookies for no one in particular, just so I have an opportunity to sing along, off-key or not, with Bing and David Bowie and Josh Groban and Diana Krall and even Nat King Cole. Only the songs I like. No "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" here. (Bless you, Apple, for letting me pick and choose my own playlist...)

I wish I had our two precious granddaughters (currently in Scotland) to bake cookies with, and wrap presents for, and to surprise on Christmas morning. I want to share with them a Christmas at Nana and Papa's house, where the tree is huge and the lights are bright and the whole house says, "Merry Christmas!" from the front door wreath to the cookie-laden kitchen counter to the living room tree. Where the stockings are full and breakfast arrives on snowman plates and cookies are there for the asking. I wish I had both our daughters here, and Paul, and Darnell, and friends and relations in the darkened church at midnight, lighting each other's candles and singing.

But even though those wishes aren't coming true this year, I can enjoy what I have--and that is plenty!--and look toward Christmases to come. That's the thing about Christmas--it comes. Every year, with all its traditions and surprises and memories, both old and new. Every year, with family and friends and all the frills and furbelows we've attached to it. It comes. Sing hallelujah.