Getting in the Spirit of Things

I have had zero Christmas spirit this year.  Those of you for whom I am not a faceless entity may be surprised by this since I am usually all about all holidays in all their forms. I have not put up a Christmas bulletin board.  I have not put lights up on the house.  I could not seem to make myself get a tree.  I have barely been able to bring myself to do the minimal changing of the string of lights and garland I have around my classroom door for all the holidays from Halloween to graduation. 

I could blame it on a great many things, but I won't go into the depressing list.  I should have known better, really.  I should have made myself do it over Thanksgiving even though it was the last thing I felt like.  I started to, but it was so much easier to keep putting it off, and the next thing I knew, the holiday was gone and school was upon me like a rabid tiger.  Now that I'm sitting here looking at everything out and on display, I feel silly for not putting forth the effort sooner. 

I got my tree in about fifteen minutes this afternoon at the place we've been getting our trees from since I was very young.  I don't have to have a moment of epiphany with the trees.  That's always been Mom's thing.  I knew which one I wanted pretty quickly, so I got it and got it home fairly fast.  I got it in the stand and everything myself (of which I was proud), and as I was decorating it, I felt the first faint glimmerings of the Christmas spirit as I pulled my collection of Shiny Brights out from under the daybed in the library where I store them.  Something about the delicate and lovely silvered glass and the fact that I am simply the latest person to share their history of holiday joy stirred whatever it was inside me that has been beaten down, grumpy and dormant this year. 

My mood continued to improve as I put some of my favorite Santa ornaments on the tree.  I have some that I look forward to seeing every year, and I always make sure they get pride of place where I see them first thing as I come into the living room from different doors.  There are always a couple I forget about, and it's a nice surprise to rediscover them in the box. 

In addition to the tree, I also set out my two Christmas collections, my old-world Santas and my nativities.  I have been collecting the Santas since I was in high school, I guess, and I have enough of them to fill the top of my piano.  I don't even put all of them out anymore.  Some of the big fancy fabric ones I save back in case I need to do a frilly table somewhere.  As I unwrapped the Santas, again memories came with them.  There are several of those I actually made when I worked at a decorative ceramics business during my undergrad days.  Others have been gifts from friends and family members. 

The nativities are a more recent addition started by one I made when I worked at that ceramics business.  I started adding others to that one, and now I have a fairly large collection of those, too.  That collection made me cry tonight.  One of the pieces I have in it came from a lady in my church who passed away this past year, and I had forgotten it was there until I had opened the box and saw her name on the tag I had kept with it.  I could see her again for a moment, and it was both beautiful and painful.  That piece has pride of place this year.

I still have several things left to do.  I need to get some lights up outside, although I have decided that I am NOT going to do what I usually do and wrap all the columns of my porch with lights.  It looks great, but it takes a million years to put up and take down.  I will probably just put some around my side entry where they'll be cheery for guests and for me when I drag my weary self in at the end of my ridiculous days.   I also found a gorgeous set of vintage poinsettia curtains Granny had in storage, and I'm trying to get some storage stains out of them right now.  Regardless of whether or not I can get them pristine, they're going up in my kitchen.  They're of the same vintage as my beloved luncheonette cloths and my Shiny Brights, and they ROCK.  

I am slowly filling my house and my heart with Christmas.  It feels good.  I had missed it, really.  I love Christmas.  I always have.  It would have been sad if I allowed everything else that has been going on to kill it off for me again this year. I guess it was really just a case of doing it and allowing the sweetness of it to fill me like the fragrance of  fresh-cut cedar or the light from a candle glowing in the window, driving out the darkness.