Merry Christmas

Hello on this Christmas Eve good people.

It is my hope that each of you have a happy Christmas and a safe, healthy and rewarding New year.

This time of year is always a mixture of sadness and gladness for me. I am glad because of the season, and with thoughts of how Christmas seems to make a lot of people happy, and sadness because I well remember the happy times of Christmas' past in our home.

I remember how our three children used to gather at the top of the stairs and call down down and ask if Santa Claus had been here yet. My wife and I, our brains fogged and our eyes bleary, due to staying up late, wrapping up gifts and giving Santa a hand in laying out all the presents under the tree, would say "yes he has been here", and the kids would come thundering down the stairs and initiate a blizzard of hastily torn-off Christmas wrappings, while my wife and I watched and smiled, Happy that we could give to our kids, and I'm a bit sad knowing those days won't come round again,

But I remember with happiness our Christmas Tree. Each year we would make a special day of the day when we went to get the tree. Some years my wife and I would go out and find a tree, and some years I would go by myself, so my wife could stay home and prepare bunches of Christmas goodies.

Starting when our oldest son was about four years old, and we were living in Florida, where my work had taken us, and Christmas Trees in the wild were pretty scarce, as the proper type of tree and its shape were seemingly not indigineous to Florida, My son and I went on an "expedition" in a small patch of partially cleared ground near the Cottage where we lived and brought home a somewhat ungainly looking slash pine tree. I wasn't sure about it, but was ever optimistic that as usual my wife and I could make it beautiful, and Sure Enough! when we got this tree trimmed it was just beautiful.

In later years my daughter also went with us on our search for a tree, and she just loved the area where we would select and cut our tree each year. Soon our youngest son would accompany us on our tree expedition. We would drive several miles to a small Christmas Tree farm, and spent a few enjoyable hours in picking out just the perfect tree. When parking near the Tree Farm, it was necessary to walk through a dense grove of mature Pine trees, forty or fifty feet tall. I can still remember how beautifully silent it was in that grove, with its soft carpet of decades of pine needles on the ground. My Daughter would always call this area "The Cathedral", and the fields where we cut our tree , the "Secret Garden" and we would invariable find just the right tree, only to find when we got it home, it was about three or four feet taller than our eleven-foot ceilings, and would have to do some tree surgery on it to make it fit. But it was worth the time and effort, for when the tree was in place and decorated, it would invariably be gloriously beautiful, and a subject of awe for all who saw it. This, together with literally hundreds of other memories fill my mind this time of year.

Yes, christmas is a time of mixed feelings for me, yet I wouldn't take a Million Dollars for any one of over a half-centuries of Memories of Christmas.

So, Happy Christmas to each and every one out there, and may all your Christmas dreams and memories be Happy Ones.

The Old Professor