TheBanyanTree: Christmas Time is Here . . .

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Our hard won snow is rapidly melting, but we’ll still have a white
Christmas.  It will be just a slushy white Christmas.  It’s foggy this
morning.  The air is full of moisture from the still melting snow, since it
never got below freezing last night, and there is no wind.  So the fog hangs
over us like a wet, soggy blanket.

Well, we’ve been through a month of preparations, concerts, visits to Santa,
parades, baking, shopping, and anxiety.  As Christmas grew closer, some of
our reserve has melted into a jolliness that isn’t expressed at any other
time of year.  As an adult, I look forward to Christmas Eve and Christmas
Day with the same anticipation and excitement as I did as a child.
Although, this time it isn’t Santa and being able to open presents that gets
my tummy tickling, it is being with family, eating good food, sharing
conversations, and watching the young ones take in the glow of these special
days.

Our manager let us leave at 2:00 pm yesterday.  None of us were really
working anyway.  Our client was off for the holidays.  The parking lot was
almost empty.  It was an unexpected and welcome gift.  I got home early
enough to have a cup of coffee with Ray.  I read the newspaper.  I checked
my email.  And then I baked the last batch of cookies.

Sugar cookies this time.  I’m not one for the details, so these cookies
always vex me.  They usually burn, or the shapes aren’t right, or I get
frustrated decorating so many cookies.  I went back to using my grandma’s
tried and true sugar cookie recipe this year.  I patiently pressed out the
shapes with the various cookie cutters I have.  I popped them into the oven.
And if by magic, the goofy cookies gained 10 sizes and looked like extremely
fat Christmas trees, angels, gingerbread men, etc.  They taste good, but
they don’t look anything like bakery Christmas cookies.  I decorated them,
let them cool, and packed them away until they make their premiere on the
cookie tray tonight.

Because of my manager’s wonderful gift of time, Ray and I had a quiet night
before the night before Christmas.  I finished this great book, Christmas in
Minnesota, which is collection of stories and essays from Christmases past
and present.  It’s interesting how in many ways the way we celebrate
Christmas hasn’t changed much from the 1850s.

Ray asked me what the plan was for today.  Well, we’ll get our usual
Saturday chores done.  Then I’ll go for a run along the river.  I’ll find
Christmas on that run.  And after I’ve found it, then I’ll come home and
begin cooking the Christmas Eve feast.  I’ll set the table.  We’ll turn off
the TV and listen to music.  The kids will come over and the rest of the
night will be pleasant chaos.  The food will be eaten, the dishes washed and
put away, the presents opened, and finally, coffee will be served along with
the pie.

They’ll go home.  The house will quiet down.  And then Christmas will
continue tomorrow.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

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

Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than
the Christmas spirit.
~Kin Hubbard