There is no place like home on the east end for the holidays. In the past, I have spent holiday seasons in Vermont, Aspen, Colorado, Florida and even once on a Caribbean cruise. However, I still believe spending the holidays at home is the best.
A tradition so many of us have is to decorate our homes with Christmas decorations, lights and of course a tree. I am a born Catholic so I have always celebrated Christmas, but I know many celebrate Hanukkah and proudly display a Menorah.
It is always an experience when one pulls out the holiday decorations from the attic, the basement, the shed, or some closet. Memories pop up from old ornaments, family decorations, or even an odd creation your children made in school when they were young. I somehow still have a few things my kids made over 30 years ago. I also have some items from my growing up days, too. My wife has a few decorations from her mother and grandmothers.
Putting up Christmas lights is a chance to be creative every year. Some years it’s that tasteful one-color thing, other years it’s crazy flashing lights in many colors. I remember when the Christmas light technology was changing and I purchased lights for the house that for the first time had ten options, like fading, blinking at various speeds and even some sort of disco setting.
It was strange pulling up to my house after work and it looking like a disco! One Christmas I stayed at my folks’ Florida house and put lights on a palm tree for the children.
Speaking of folks, the vision of my dad on a ladder putting up those old big bulb lights is a fond forever memory. Hopefully, my children remember me putting up our lights.
It’s funny how so many of us can remember Christmases of the past by gifts. For example, one year I received an HO train set, another year I received a puppet stage and puppets. Then there was the year of the bicycle, and all the years my grandmother gave me pajamas.
There were times when I would find the hidden Christmas gifts by accident in an odd closet. Then secretly return to the closet over and over to just gawk at the stuff. Suddenly, the world changed and I became the parent and I hid the gifts from my kids. I love the time I gifted my daughters ski jackets of different colors, when they both wore the same size. They eyeballed each other’s jackets and in unison said “switch,” and they did just that and loved their jackets.
To this day I still have an Adirondack rocking chair I purchased near Lake George, thirty-five or so years ago. I tied it to the roof of the car for my 100-mile drive home. Sitting in that chair in front of the fireplace was a ritual. On Christmas mornings over the years, I watched my two daughters open their gifts. When we were home for the holidays, I would sit in that rocking chair in front of the fire and rock, usually with the family beagle at my feet. The kids would be nearby. That was a very special time in my life.
Now, the girls are in their thirties and live very far away. I divorced their mom twenty-two years ago but luckily found a wonderful woman whom I married ten years ago. We spend Christmas holidays together. I still have that rocking chair, and when I sit in it all sorts of memories come to mind. My wife and I are now in our late sixties, we spend time around our Christmas tree. Since it hangs high in the kitchen under it we do our writings, and phone stuff. We dine under it, too. We love to play holiday tunes on the blue-tooth speakers. There is a peacefulness hearing Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas.” There is a special comfort with my wife nearby with the Christmas tree lights above us flickering. Especially when Perri Como sings, “There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays.” As the song prolifically ends, “And for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home.”
