Tis the Season

          I’m trying hard not to clench my jaw and hold my breath until the “holiday season” is over.  But honestly, there are only two things I like about this time of year: lights and cards.

          I think Christmas lights should be put up right after the finale of Dancing with the Stars and left up until Daylight Savings Time returns. I love driving through the Hill Country – or anywhere – and seeing the festive colors. I enjoy seeing which houses go all-out.  Here in our rental house, I hung white (golden) lights over the security door that we leave open all year, and John put colored net lights on the hedge. They’re  pretty and lift my spirits. I like looking out my kitchen window and seeing Dan & Jan’s house at the end of the cul-du-sac, with a string of golden lights outlining their roof.

          Inside I have a string of white lights on the mantle with my favorite decorations accumulated over the years - Jo Lathwood’s three felt Santas she made from a pattern in Sunset Magazine, I must have had them at least thirty years; the wooden St. Nicholas carved by Helen Smith of Oakhurst, in 1991, before Parkinson’s took her skill away;  Hawaiian Santa sent by Holly and Michael who now live in North Carolina; and the green glass Christmas tree from Jeff and Sarah when they lived in Indianapolis, now they’re in Tennessee.

          The other thing I love is getting Christmas cards. However, coming up with ours is a struggle and this year was no different. It’s hard to encapsulate the major events of the year in a fourteen line poem. Then there’s the photo. Because we’d brought the planters inside when the nights got frosty, we thought it would make a nice picture. 

          I set up the tripod and took a bunch of pictures of me and Walter. But he got so excited each time I said, “Walter come!” that he thought I meant for him to munch on the carrots!

          John took a picture in which I looked good but the dog had red-eye.  He, John, didn’t want to be in the picture, because he’d been sick for three weeks with a wracking cough, but I decided he had to be in it.

I “staged” everything beforehand, propping up the peppers with a toilet paper roll, covered with leaves, placing parsley and basil to one side and making a spot for John to stand where he would be framed by the window.

          I said, “Just stand there and do whatever you want.”  I put on the timer, ran into the shot and smiled.  “Okay,” I said looking at the picture, “you’re done, you can go back to what you were doing.”

          And so I’ve been working on getting the cards out, one batch at a time. I don’t have the right computer program to make cards, so I do it the old fashioned way: print the card, get pictures made at CVS, glue on the picture, trim, sign, address envelope. 

          As I go through my list – in the past we’ve mailed as many as 125 – I know that most of the people I mail cards to will not mail one to us. But so what?  I like picturing my friends getting the mail, opening the envelope, looking at the picture, reading the poem. I know that for thirty seconds or so I’ll be connected again to someone I love.

          As of now I’ve mailed seventy-cards. We haven’t done “John’s people” yet. If I decide to do an e-version, I’ll need to take my camera to John’s computer and email myself the photo, because, as previously stated this 2002 computer doesn’t have a place for me to plug in my camera, of if it does, it’s where I can’t get at it.

          I plan to take John to a Christmas party at my church’s minister’s house, this Sunday. I’m always hoping I can find him a friend.  But I should know by now I married a loner, whose few good friends are far away.

          Christmas day I’ll watch the Lakers with low or no expectations. Of the last thirteen years when they played on Christmas day they only won twice.

          I must add that I’m grateful for the lovely weather we’re having. After those days of frost – which I enjoyed – it’s warmed up. Today was tropical, 72 degrees and cloudy.  I sat out front with Jane kitty on my lap smelling the sweetness in the air, watching the sunset.  Then I went into John’s office and wrenched him away form his computer. I took him out into the patio where we picked sweet peas, bush beans and radishes.

          Today I’m in my zories. Tomorrow I’ll be back in boots. Life is change.  And here in South Texas the changes come quickly. Before I know it it’ll be New Years, then the Superbowl, the Oscars, the return of Dancing with the Stars, then hot summer. 

          Dear Santa, please see what you can do about finding us a house with a pool . . .