photo of the Denver City and County Building, circa 1989
photo credit family ambis

Christmas is coming. The month countdown started a few days ago. I haven’t found myself feeling quite Christmasy over the last few months or so. Could be the endless calls from my bank about that debt thing or the muscle tightening stress that flares up every time I walk through the doors of my workplace. To be honest, my mood hasn’t exactly been festive as The Holiday Season has begun. Hopefully, this will improve. To help, I decided to pause and step back from the hustle and bustle of life.

As I walk around I see people are hanging up the lights and I flash back to my younger days with the family here in Denver when we would try that exciting fun challenge. It was a game called figure the bloody lights and why they’re not working, blinking or even showing anything and going light by light, strand by strand examining and talking to yourself about things that you would like to do to the people who invented Christmas lights and then suddenly they work when you move the cord just that way.

The game ended when you either had a somewhat functional strand of lights haphazardly hung around the outside of the house or if in the midst of decorating the ladder abandoned you, the stickered guarantee that had been stuck on every ladder since 1967 and the laws of gravity. Either way, it made for an entertaining day. Laughter and Band Aids coupled with optional hospital visits are always a holiday treat.

This doesn’t even begin to explain the Indiana Jones and the Search for the Perfect Christmas Tree adventure that played out every December. It is why my family purchased a plastic tree in a attempt to avoid the painful insanity of dressing in five thousand layers, driving out to the land and cutting a tree down with an ax, saw or whatever you managed to remember to bring. Finding yourself in the open snow scape with no weapon of choice in the battle against the evergreens would inspire the very anti-Christmas spouting of vulgarities that sailors even turned pink upon hearing.

This doesn’t even cover getting the tree back to the warm and cozy living room which would soon smell like pine and be littered with needles that would grow legs and wander about the house in the dark hours of the night. Vacuuming became a daily event. Even with the white glove treatment years later you would pull a couch back and find rouge needles taunting you from Christmas past.

The sad part of this is that even with a plastic tree you were doomed. Branches tangled, parts went missing and shaping the cursed branches was a special challenge. I usually ended up creating a Frankenstein tree that required “parental intervention”.

In all seriousness, I do enjoy Christmas. It’s a time for celebration, remembering the Reason for the Season and spending time with family. Laughter and shared moments of hope and love can erase the memories of the long hard road of getting to Christmas. As I get ready to see my mom, dad, brother and extended family in a month I hope you are looking forward to time with your family. It’s my hope and prayer that this Christmas will be special for all of us in a special way.

We’re going to need all the love, hope and warmth to get through 2008. If any holiday can do it…Christmas can.

Russ Dale reminds us that he is the best of the best when it comes to food. If this is his Christmas Dinner, can you imagine his Thanksgiving Feast?

As Russ is working today (and so will I here shortly), I hope you all are thankful for the time you have to spend with your family. Hold them close and treasure those moments.