The modern way seems to be to put all your decorations up right after Thanksgiving. In fact, this year, for the first time, I saw a number of houses with exterior lights up a week or two before Thanksgiving. One in particular, on Lancaster Drive in Bella Vista, is a gaudy display of flashing lights that serve more to distract the driver than thrill the viewer. Alas.

Then, the day after Christmas, the decorations are all taken down. Many people put their used, natural tree at the curb, waiting for someone else to deal with their waste. The house returns to normal. Most people with outdoor lights will leave them up until New Year’s Day—even the gaudy one on Lancaster.

Growing up in the Todd family, it was not so. Mom and Dad said it was English tradition that Christmas decorations went up the day before Christmas and stayed up till Epiphany. Yet, it wasn’t quite that way. I few decorations went up earlier, but always in moderation, and always in the same order.

First was the candles in the front windows. We had four windows in the front of the house, and one on the east side close to the street. Each of these windows were given a single electric candle. They went up about three weeks before Christmas, and with a twist went on at dark and off before bedtime—but early enough to let the heat dissipate so we could pull the shades all the way down.

Actually, even before the candles went up, Christmas cards that came in became a decoration. They began shortly after Thanksgiving. The first was always from Aubrey Pooley, a man from the church. Dad ran a wide ribbon across the doors of the secretary in the dining room and paper-clipped the cards to it. When that was filled he hung string in the wide archway between the living room and dining room and hung cards on the string. They were always beautiful, and were a decoration before any other went up.

We got the Christmas tree, always a natural one, about two weeks before Christmas. I think I wrote about that in a previous blog post. If I did and I can find it, I’ll come back and add a link. If I didn’t write about it, perhaps I will between now and Christmas. But, the tree didn’t go up. It went into our detached garage in a bucket of water. Then, about a week before Christmas, Dad moved it to the basement to let it “get acclimated to the heat” of the house. It didn’t go up until Christmas eve.

The manger scene went up next. Maybe a week before Christmas we made room for it somewhere in the living room (I think). But, it had only a few animals in it, and maybe one shepherd. Mary and Joseph were put as far away from the manger as they could be in that attached living room/dining room combo. Over the course of several days they would journey to Bethlehem, arriving at the manger on Christmas eve. We added the baby, more shepherds, and a couple of angels. The magi weren’t there yet. They showed up far away in the house, and began a journey that would have them arrive at the manger on Epiphany.

So it came down to Christmas eve, and in a flurry of activity all the other decorations went up. We brought the tree up from the basement, cleared space for it somewhere in the living room, and decorated it, complete with a mixture of light types and colors, including the old style bubbly lights. And don’t forget the lit Santa and snowman that sat under the tree, or the spire that went on top. This was a dad and kids task mostly, and more on that some year in a dedicated post. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Mom was working on a number of things. The most time consuming of these was the candy house. I’m going to see if I can find a photo of it to scan and add. I won’t say a lot about the candy house and all that went with it, for that’s a post in itself.

The rest of our decorations were a mixture of things gathered over the year. There was the vinyl Santa face we taped to the mirror in the living room. I think we scattered ornaments on various surfaces. The candy house, once completed, was moved to the dining room table and all the characters were placed around it. And, of course, Mary and Joseph made it to Bethlehem some time that afternoon.

Looking back, I don’t know how all that was accomplished on one day. Mom was sick with the illness that would take her life when her children were teenagers, but somehow found the energy to do all this. And, of course, make Christmas cookies. Dad worked nights, and if Christmas and Christmas eve fell on Monday through Friday, he had to work. So he would be sleeping in the morning and would be gone by 7:30 p.m. Yet, together they got it done.

Of course, as we children got old enough, we would help. It was great fun to add frosting to the candy house and drape it like icicles. But actually, the decorating wasn’t necessarily done. Since the tree went up so late, only a few presents were under the tree when we went to bed; but when we got up Christmas morning there were many.

I have one clear memory from one Christmas. I guess I was around 10 years old. It was a Christmas eve Dad had to work, so he was gone when we went to bed. I remember waking up one Christmas eve. Our bedroom door was shut most of the way; the light was on in the kitchen behind it, and I could hear Mom’s and Dad’s voices. It had to be sometime after 4:00 a.m., because back then that was the time Dad got off work. I didn’t get up to see what they were doing, and drifted back to sleep.

The next morning I got up, went into the kitchen, and found it transformed with many more decorations. Red and green crepe paper ribbons had been twirled and attached from the light in the center  to each corner of the room. Other decorations were also up, though my memory fails me on specifics. But I remember the streamers. They had worked a long time to put those up.

So Christmas morning would dawn in the Todd house with that house looking much, much difference than the previous morning. Rather than a month-long time of decoration, we had mostly 12 days. Looking back on this, it was a magical time, and I cherish the memories. My adult practices are different, in a world of different expectations, but the Christmases of my childhood are not lost.

I’m currently in Oklahoma City, at my daughter and son-in-law’s house, getting a good dose of playing with Ephraim, and reconnecting with the Internet. From Dec 22 to 27 we were in Meade, Kansas, staying at Lynda’s cousin’s house. She has only a direct connect modem. Her mom, who lives next door, has a wireless network, and we could connect to that. I was planning on making a post on Christmas day, but her computer decided to go on a permanent vacation that day. Apparently a cable modem and wireless router are not enough, and we lost Internet service. I suppose I could have gone to the truck stop the next day, or to a hotel parking lot, but we were too busy playing Rummycube and Scrabble and visiting an old ranch and other such things. So here I am, a couple of days late, taking advantage of Ephraim taking his nap to fire this off.

This year we sent out 76 Christmas cards, not including one to each other. I think five were distributed personally, not mailed. Another two could have been as well. Two cards we sent last year were not necessary this year, due to deaths in the family. We dropped a couple of others due to many years of not hearing back. That total is down from about 125 cards a decade ago. Glad to save the postage, but it started me wondering.

What really set me wondering, however, is the lack of cards received. Granted we hadn’t received mail since Dec 22, but I think we had received a total of 16 cards up till then. That includes the one from my company and two from fund raising organizations to which we contribute. I’d like to see what the final count is, and when it’s in I’ll post a comment to this. I suspect it will be around 25 incoming, maybe as many as 30.

Is the Christmas card dead? Or almost so? Sometimes I wonder if Lynda and I are the only ones who still bother with this old tradition. I remember my parents getting cards in the 1960s. Dad stretched red ribbon up and down the secretary in the dining room and clipped the cards to it. When he ran out of room there, he put them on string stretched in the wide archway between the living and dining room. When he ran out of room there, he put them somewhere, or maybe just in piles on a table. Of course, back then postage was 5 cents, and cards probably 15 cents or less.

So what’s happened? We now have many more ways to keep in touch. Telephone is cheap. It used to be a long distance call cost so much that you saved them for holidays only. Now we can talk to a loved one every day and never feel the cost. We have twitter and facebook and skype and e-mail. We are more connected than ever before. We don’t need to wait for an annual Christmas card with a quickly penned note, “We are all well. Uncle Theo passed away in October.” Now we know about Uncle Theo within moments of his passing.

I guess I don’t regret the loss of the Christmas card. Getting 76 done is a whole lot easier than 125. It’s been 27 years since we left Saudi Arabia, and I guess it was inevitable that we’d lose track of all those people sooner or later. Lives seem to be busier, though lots of it is self-generated busyness. We couldfind time for Christmas cards if we wanted to, but don’t.

I think next year I may chop the number down to about 65 cards, pocket the change, and put it towards a new laptop.

Last night we saw most of A Christmas Carol on TV, one of the recent renditions, the one where Patrick Stewart played Scrooge. Can’t say that I liked it all that much compared to various other ones, but it was good to see it, the only time so far this year that we’ve seen the Dickens story that became the first of his many Christmas classics.

That got me thinking about Christmases past. Long past? No, my past. Specifically the Christmas tree. I’m thinking of those years when I was between 8 and 10 years old, maybe up to 12. About two or three weeks before Christmas, on a Saturday afternoon or evening, Dad would say to us three kids, “Let’s go get the Christmas tree.” Each of the five of us in the family—three kids and two parents—would bring forth 20 cents from our allowance, and Dad and the kids would set off on foot, leaving Mom behind to do whatever she was doing. We walked south on Reservoir Avenue, just three or four blocks. There we found three Christmas tree lots. Normally empty lots during the year, at Christmastime they were transformed. Now, of course, the land is too valuable to let them sit idle eleven months a year, and they all have a building. But wait, this is about Christmases Past.

We went immediately to the back of the lot, where the trees of lesser quality were, trees that could be had for a dollar. Dad always picked one that was too tall for our house, and would have to be cut at the bottom and maybe even the top. It was never a great tree. The branches would be far apart and thin. But we bought it, paid our ten dimes, and carried it home. Normally we had to cross Reservoir Avenue with the tree. It was only four lanes back then, with lots less traffic. North a few blocks we walked, then on to Cottage Street, four houses down the left side, and put the tree in the garage.

The garage, you ask? Yes, for in proper British tradition (well, I think it was British; for all I know it could have just been us) the tree was not installed and decorated until Christmas Eve. So it stayed in the garage, in a bucket of water, for a week. We kids used to go out there almost every day to check it, why I don’t know. About a week before Christmas Dad moved it to the basement.

The basement, you ask? Yes. Dad felt that the tree should have a week to “get used to” the warmer temperature of the house. Plus at this time he did whatever trimming needed to be done. So we kids made our daily visit to the basement to check the tree, make sure it had plenty of water, and that nothing had gone wrong with it.

Finally on Christmas Eve, Dad brought the tree upstairs. We all helped rearrange furniture in the living room. Once on its stand, with iron weights on the legs, Dad first put the lights on. Not the miniature lights that we use today, nor all the same. No, we used a mixture of lights, probably six or eight different shapes and almost as many colors, probably acquired over many years. The bubbly lights we our favorite. Dad took lots of time to get the lights just right, clipping each one to a branch, making sure all parts of the tree were equally lit, both those parts close to the end of the branches as well as in the interior.

Then we kids did the ornaments. Following Dad’s instructions, we made sure to spread then out, keeping like ornaments scattered and hanging them near the outside as well as inside of the tree. Then came the icicles. No, not the tinsel. We had what we called icicles, a solid, shiny metal piece twisted into a spiral, with a thread on one end. We hung these on the branches about two inches from the end. They were heavy enough that they would cause the branch to droop if hung too close to the end. Then came the tinsel, always the stuff left over from years of being on prior trees and salvaged at the end of a dozen previous Christmases Past. I still remember the white box it came out of on December 24 and went back into on either January 2 or 7. At the bottom of the tree, a cloth skirt of some kind, I think red, and then a lighted snowman and Santa. On the top, not a star or a bow but a spire, made like a glass ornament but designed to fit over the upward-reaching top branch.

The tree stayed up until New Years Day or, if Dad thought it was not getting too dry, until the end of the twelve days of Christmas on Epiphany. As the years went on we could no longer get a tree for a dollar, and we each had to chip in a quarter to get a tree. I think we could still get a marginal one for that price the year Mom died. Traditions didn’t change too much after that, though the price of the tree kept climbing. The tree still was bought three weeks before Christmas and decorated on Christmas Eve and taken down on Epiphany. The same strings of lights went on with the same care. The same ornaments—less the one or two that broke every year—were carefully dispersed. The tinsel came out of and went back into the same white box year after year, a little bit more mashed and clumped.

The trees of those years had no theme. Their theme was that this is Christmas and we should have a tree. It should have lights—pretty lights, and pretty decorations. It should be festive rather than beautiful. It probably wasn’t beautiful, but now, with fifty or so Christmases Past gone by, those trees remain beautiful in my eyes.

I wish somehow we could make Christmas less stressful. Fewer parties, no shopping (which of course means no gifts), normal dinners. Cards are okay, because that gives us a once a year reason to contact people and write a letter.

Our cards will go out today or tomorrow. The problem, well, just the busyness of the season and unfortunate circumstances and disagreement on what should be in the letter, which is still not finished. Maybe this will be the last year for cards and letters, or maybe next year will be cards only, since they are the easy part.

Of course, that would run counter to what I said above. Oh, well, life is full of contradictions. We just learn to live with them, and pretend they only come from outside sources.

Merry Christmas, all. Our main gathering starts today, with our main meal tomorrow. The kids were all here for Thanksgiving, so they are off on other pursuits now. Other relatives are traveling toward our house right now.