Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Hola darlings! I'm sure I've mentioned this before. I'm a creature of the light. The darkness wears me down. I don't like forcing myself out of bed at 6 a.m. when it's still dark outside, and I don't like coming home from the office at 6 p.m. when it's dark outside. Yech! But - this morning - the Christmas Spirit hit me. Well, that's not to say I haven't been in a festive mood, because I like Christmas - when it's here I know the days are already starting to get longer by a few minutes each day and except for brutal temperatures in January and February and the occasional blizzard or ice storm in March and April (and even May), the worst is over! I know that in a scant six months it will still be lingering daylight at 9:30 p.m. Ahhhhhhh, those long warm evenings spent out on the deck, sipping wine, listening to smooth jazz, communing with the stars and my resident critters. That's the life, darlings!

As is my wont even on the weekends, I arose at 6 a.m. this morning. I was sitting at the dinette table, just two paltry mini fluorescent light bulbs in my five-light chandelier holding off the chill darkness as it snowed outside, brrrrr. As I do every Sunday morning, I had my coffee at hand and the big thick newspaper to keep me company. I generally spend a good 3 to 4 hours reading through the entire Sunday newspaper, including most of the sale papers, marvelling at how many things I would like to buy if only I could afford them! I had my favorite smooth jazz radio station (FM) on the radio and was munching on some salt-crusted rye bread and butter when one of my favorite songs came on: Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song." You know the song - even if you don't know the title. It's the one that starts out "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose..."

That did it - it was the perfect time, the perfect song. I was enveloped in Nat's marvelous voice and swept back to my childhood when Nat King Cole actually had a television show. His talent and charisma were such that even broadcast television recognized it, and so there was this black man on the t.v. - in black and white (ironic???) in the late 1950's, and I just loved the man. When he sang, I was transported to another world. Indeed, he was a favorite of the entire family. Unfortunately, the show was never a commercial success; sponsors were scared to death of being boycotted by the southern white racists back then, and so the show disappeared after about a year. Of course, back then, as a five year old, I had no idea what was going on; I just knew I loved the man with the wonderful voice, and to this day I will stop and listen, no matter where I am, when I hear Nat King Cole's voice.

"The Christmas Song" represents the essence of Christmas to me (I'm about to commit blasphemy here - even more so than Bing Crosby's "White Christmas"), and even after all these years, the song never fails to touch me. And so it did, again, this morning.

Today was the big day to decorate the Christmas tree, as the Packers were going to be on t.v. I could watch The Pack whup major butt while I spent a leisurely 3 hours decorating the tree. Yesterday, I'd successfully managed to retrieve it from the garage (although not without some mishap). For a rather smallish tree (it's only 6.5 feet tall and not very wide), it's amazingly heavy. It's also in three sections that somehow manage to come apart whenever I'm attempting to lift the tree or drag it somewhere...

Anyway, darlings, I gave up decorating the tree for the day at about 6:00 p.m. Whew! Been at it since 10:30 a.m. and somehow I have lots of ornaments left over that were ALL on the tree last year. Eek! What did I do wrong, I ask you? And - ohmygoddess - I asked dondelion to bring me a minimum of 10 quite beautiful burgundy and gold bead sunburst ornaments when he comes for Christmas. I found them online while shopping yesterday but it seems the only place that sells them is a tire place in Canada (I'm not kidding, it's a tire place) and you must go to one of their stores in person in order to purchase the ornaments - can you imagine?

I'm scratching my head wondering where on earth I managed to put on to the tree all the left-overs I have this year. I'll take it up tomorrow night when I get home from the office. And of course the burgundy Canadian starbursts will have places on the tree found for them, too!

The photograph is from Christmas, 2006. I don't think it quite does the tree justice - but you get the general idea. I like lots of glitz and glamour - pearls and gold and the sparkle of "diamonds".