Packing Up Christmas
The end of the holiday season has come to Holstein House.
The end of the holiday season has come to Holstein House. The giddy, happy process of unpacking boxes and totes, and carefully situating each cherished item gives way to the dreaded drudgery of dismantling and stowing them again.
There is always a bit of melancholy in the air when I take down the Christmas decor. It signals the end when it should be the beginning.
My household is a Christian household. Christmas is first of all the celebration of the birth of Christ. It is a time for family, friends, and food. This year, unlike Christmas 2020, our home, and table were full Christmas Eve.
My son, Douglas, was able to come in for a couple days. My niece, Jessica, her husband Joe, and her children came over, as did my father. If you ever stayed at Holstein House you know it was a full house!
I didn’t cook a big sit-down meal this year. We did that at Thanksgiving. I felt the need to reduce a little stress so I dialed things back. I did cook. I just set everything up buffet-style.
I love Christmas. I love putting the decorations up, inside and out. I love the more formal tree I put up in the living room. It does not have personal decorations on it. It has store-bought ornaments.
I have the ceramic tree my mom made for me placed on the piano where it can be seen through the window. It is white with red doves, and lights up. I also have a ceramic snowman head she painted, on the dining room table. She loved painting ceramics. Her girlfriend ran a shop in Cedar Grove. Mom spent a fortune on that stuff.
The tree I started putting up in the dining room has the sentimental decorations on it. There are handmade ornaments that Douglas, Tori, and Damian have made. There are First Christmas ornaments, and gifted ornaments. There are crocheted snowflakes my grand-aunt Charlotte made.
I have a felt Santa that was given to me when I was in Wilford Hall Medical Unit, Lackland Airforce Base, Christmas 1985. A small cotton ball wrapped in a square of fabric, tied with a piece of yarn, sits at the top. It has a beautiful poem attached to it:
Lovegift
This is a very special gift that you can never see.
The reason it is so special is it’s just for you from me.
You only have to hold this gift and know I’m thinking of you.
You never unwrap it.
Please leave the ribbon tied.
Just hold it close to your heart,
For it’s filled with love inside.
Okay, it isn’t a great poem, but it came from my late son’s Headstart preschool class and I think of him every time I put it on and take it off the tree.
There are a few things from when I first started keeping house, in 1982. They are “Made In China” plastic, poorly constructed Victorian style ornaments. My children’s father and I walked a couple miles to a TG&Y discount store in Killeen, Texas, and bought them.
We lived in a roach infested two-room apartment when he was initially assigned to Fort Hood. I still remember the address: 103 West Anderson Avenue, Apartment 6, Killeen, Texas. I shudder when I think of that place.
I guess the melancholy results from knowing I won’t see the cherished memories until next December. I feel as though the family is scattered after Christmas, and it kinda is. Douglas will return to his home in Virginia. Jessica, Joe, and the kids will get back to their lives.
Christmas, however, is the beginning. Since, for me, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child, it is the beginning of His life story leading up to His crucifixion.
I have not heard from UVA this week. They were waiting on some bloodwork, which I had completed Thursday. I am still working on getting my weight down. Due to a full week of appointments I did not get in my two-mile daily walk like I have been.
As far as decor, I am moving on to Valentine’s Day. It isn’t as elaborate, but I will have a few things up. Do you do much decorating for Valentines?
I hope to see you soon!