Decorations

Over the long weekend Ginny and I focused on taking down Thanksgiving decorations , packing them away, and talking about decorations for Christmas.

The key word there is talking.

We talked about how in Christmases past we hosted decorating parties. When Donald and Eve were in college they’d round up all the kids stranded on campus far from home and bring them to our house for the Christmas holiday. They’d camp out sleeping on the living room floor, eat us out of house and home, bring in tons of laundry for Ginny to do, and enjoy conversations with students from other countries. We had Arabs and Israelis and Haitians and Bulgarians and yankees and Nigerians and I forget what all else.

Ours was a mad house… but it was a lavishly decorated madhouse.

And I’d spend all holiday driving kids to and fro from college, to the airport, to the mall, to the doctor’s office—crazy days.

But fun.

Only once did I have to put a student out for inappropriate behavior.

But now that our kids are grown and gone to establish their own homes and lives, peace on earth reigns in our house over the holidays and we hardly decorate at all any more. Instead, on Saturday, we drove downtown to the main library to enjoy their parade of trees, we strolled looking at window displays in downtown businesses, and we ate lunch on a Landing balcony overlooking the giant community Christmas tree there.

We lack the energy and inclination to decorate much this year and consequently we enjoy the season more. So, now and then until Christmas, I’ll occasionally post favorite cartoons from the book Ho! Ho!Ho! edited by S. Gross and Jim Charlton (Viking Press). I bought the book as a present for someone else but I’ve enjoyed the cartoons so much that I may keep it myself.

Over the rainy Sunday we read sipping coffee in silent companionship: Ginny is working through every Agatha Christy mystery in print; I finished reading C.S. Forester’s Age Of Fighting Sail: The Naval History Of The War Of 1812.

And we talked about Christmas plans and home repairs and sex and worship and health and terrorism and a multitude of other things. We never finish the fascinating conversation we began 40 years ago.

We decided not to erect a Christmas tree this year—too much furniture to move.

But, Ginny did unpack a tacky glorious angel she likes and a tasteful singing dog which she plans to display on her office desk.

And I broke out a manger scene with small figures made of pressed tin painted with translucent glaze. I bought it at a yard sale for a nickel last year. The entire thing fits into a matchbox….I set it up in front of the aquarium; the photo dosen’t show it, but in real life the figures gleam much shinier than our goldfish.

The other 30 or so cartons of our 40-year’s-accumulation of Christmas decorations can stay in the attic for this year. This year we’ll leave the heavy decorating to Laacoon’s family.