Christmas Now! Then!

A tree in our old neighborhood. For 11 months of the year if was ugly, but at Christmas?
It was stunning.

You might think that this post is a tad premature, but there is a reason: I want to celebrate Christ's birth, listen to music, decorate with every bulb and garland I can find, and remember every Christmas possible. Christmas cannot wait and neither can I.

Taken from our Chicago hotel room
after my son's wedding

Waiting for Christmas is and has always been the most intense, insane experience of anticipation of all the year. 

Standing in front of the tree and being mesmerized by the lights is the disco ball of the season. Then there was the dancing around the tree. Shaking the presents and guessing their contents is always be part of the game.  The small train around the base wears itself out by the Big Day, only too happy to be packed away for next year’s new batteries and another chance to whistle.

(That was a few years ago, going into the sixth decade of life. Then my granddaughters informed me then that I have to move away from the tree.  It was their time to do the dancing.)

Moving ahead some years and I would be found with the other delights: baking some, fixing meals, cuddling a baby, and moving furniture around to accommodate our grandsons BJ and Jim. (then almost 1 year old baby brother).

BJ 5th birthday, June 26, 2017

Jim at 6 months, June 22, 2017

I was waiting for Christmas, slightly removed from the tree’s perimeter to allow tween girls and a five year-old in pajamas to enter into the thrall of the tree. And now there will only be two girls in their teens. Sweet wonderful girls who are Irish dancers will be there.Christmas starts as a spark of joy, and then fills me all up.  Christmas is here!  Christ came into the world as a human, to experience the human pain and suffering.  Christ was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven.   Christ dwells within me daily, reminding me that I am part of His family. 
This year I will think about those boys in their own home, dancing around their tree. 

In a running park 

This a repost of 2010.  I liked it, and juggled some words about to post it again in 2017. Now, here in 2019, I post it again.

Why is this post going up in early November, you may ask.  Christmas 2016 my husband's family went on a cruise because Mom Kane had died in February and none of us wanted to be home, without her.

It wasn't Christmas for any of us, we acknowledged it then and now.  Now, each year since 2016 we gather in one home or another and talk about times with Mom and Dad, and the joy they brought to Christmas.

This year, 2019 my husband and I will dance up a storm around the tree with our teenage granddaughters, laughing about all the other dances of the past. WE will stop our dancing after a few minutes while they carry away the night.

YouTube: Flash Mob, 2010

Merry Christmas!

Waiting for Christmas

Waiting for Christmas is and has always been the most intense, insane experience of anticipation of all the year.  

Standing in front of the tree and being mesmerized by the lights is the disco ball of the season.  Shaking the presents and guessing their contents will always be part of the game.  The small train around the base wears itself out by the Big Day, only too happy to be packed away for next year’s new batteries and another chance to whistle.

That was last year, when I turned 60 years old.  My granddaughters have informed me that I have to move away from the tree.  It is their time to do the dancing.

That leaves me with the other delights: baking obscenely rich pastries, putting together the Christmas pudding (a little late, I know), and moving furniture around to accommodate an almost crawling grandson Benjamin(:() 

Benjamin exploring cooked carrot, ignoring the broccoli

Waiting for Christmas has become more than all the above for the adult me.  Sometime between the first songs playing in Target Stores to the filling of the stockings on Christmas Eve, a miraculous event bursts inside me. 

Source:RoxanaElizeche/Pecebre6

It started as a spark of joy, and then fills me all up.  Christmas is here!  Christ came into the world as a human, to experience the human pain and suffering.  Christ was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven.   Christ dwells within me daily, reminding me that I am part of His family. 

I am waiting for Christmas, slightly removed from the tree’s perimeter to allow two little girls in pajamas to enter into the thrall of the tree. 

The spark is there and starting to burst into the “Hallelujah Chorus”! 

Do you get that spark?  Are the memories of Christmas both looking back and being in the present?  Are you still dancing?  Do you have to push the kids and grandkids out of the way?