TheBanyanTree: On Your Mark . . . Get Set . . .

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I keep checklists in my head.  Some people write them their tasks to be
completed down, and I’m sure I’ll get to the point one day where I’ll have
to do that, too, but for now, I just keep checklists filed in my brain
cells.

The checklist that is taking center stage right now is the Christmas (or
Holiday) one.  The Christmas list pops into my head around Halloween and
expands and contracts as items get checked off until the goal of a perfect
Christmas is reached and then the list gets filed for next year as soon as
all the holiday decorations are taken down and stored away.

A few years ago, I was downsizing Christmas.  I got rid of a lot of
Christmas decorations.  I didn’t send out as many cards.  I wanted Christmas
to be a peaceful meditation of the season.  But ever since I became a
grandmother and my grandsons are getting older (3 and 5), Christmas and all
its trimmings have been resurrected.

The Christmas season has become a calendar crammed with activities and
things I must get done.  I begin planning around Halloween.  I order my
Christmas cards in October.  I get my online shopping done in early
November.  I hang my indoor and outdoor Christmas lights the day after
Thanksgiving.  I’ll put out the Ho-Ho-Ho Santa decorations next week.  The
tree will go up the week after.  I’ll bake a few cookies.  I’ll do my final
shopping run.  Ray will wrap presents, because he does it better than I do.
We’ll get the groceries for the big meal on Christmas Eve.  I’ll make dinner
reservations for New Year’s Eve.

The boys and their mother and I will do the Reindeer Run 5K next Saturday to
kick off the holiday season.  What is a better way to capture the Christmas
spirit than to do a brisk walk outside and  breathe in that cold, crisp air
with hordes of people dressed as reindeer, Santa, and elves?  The older one’
s leg fracture has completely healed.  He only wore a cast for a week!  The
doctor said she never saw anything like it.  But he’s a magic child.  He was
hit by a car a couple of years ago, a Durango, and only had a bump on the
head.  So he can “run” with us.

We’ll go to the big city of Minneapolis and see Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves at the Marshall Field’s auditorium.  The boys will visit with Santa
and get that picture taken with him.  We’ll have dinner, and then stand
outside and watch the beautiful Holidazzle parade.

Ray and I will head to Orchestra Hall right before Christmas and take in Doc
Severinson’s Christmas show with the Minnesota Orchestra and choir and
everyone else.  The trumpets playing “Deck the Halls” will echo in my ears
and I’ll hum along until Christmas.

We’ll have Christmas Eve and presents and family time.  On Christmas Day, we
’ll head back to the big city and go ice skating.  We did that last year and
it was a lot of fun.

Then it’s New Year’s and time to clean up and say, “Whew!  It’s over!”

I never did this much stuff when my son was little.  Mostly, because I
couldn’t afford it, and partly because I don’t think Christmas was as long
of a season as it is now.  Christmas almost edges out Thanksgiving and
Halloween is in danger of being taken over as well.  Look at me, I begin
planning Christmas around Halloween time!

And without being aware of it I just wrote out my Christmas checklist!

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be
careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~E.P. Powell