"Christmas"

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - NOT!!! At least not at my house. As I write this it is six days until Christmas and we haven't even put up a tree. There are no candles in our windows and no wreath on the door. People ride by and wonder if the Coopers are atheists, or just scrooges. I have begun telling people we are just supporting our neighbors who are Seventh Day Adventists. They have a decoration-less home too.

The sad thing is we intend to decorate, but we just keep putting it off. In truth too my wife has had the flu and is just now feeling a little bit like her old self. All the boxes with decorations are in the middle of the living room and when she feels up to it we will start. That may be Christmas Eve but we will start.

I took a look in the boxes a few days ago and seriously thought about putting up some decorations myself. But then I knew my wife would just go behind me and redo. So I abandoned that idea. About fifteen years ago she was sick at Christmas so Sean, my youngest son, and I put up the tree. We haven't heard the end of it yet. We didn't put all the right decorations on the tree, we didn't put them in the right places, and we shattered some of her favorite decorations in the process. Three strikes and you are out!

I am not a big Christmas person, but I actually do miss the decorations this year. Well I miss them the way my wife does them. They do look pretty when she gets them arranged and placed. Plus the kids and grandkids are coming and I want the house to look nice for them.

My mother always decorated for Christmas. I don't remember what the decorations looked like but I do remember the manger set we had. My brother and I would play with the donkeys and the cows and have them talking to each other. We left the shepherds and the wise men alone, and weren't allowed to play with Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus. That would have been a sacrilege.

After my mother died and my father remarried, my stepmother didn't decorate. She wasn't really into that. That should have been my first clue our relationship was going to be rocky. But after my mother died I didn't care about Christmas for a long time so it really didn't matter whether we had decorations or not.

I am already fighting the Christmas "blues." I can feel them descending around my shoulders. Hopefully having the grandkids here will keep me out of a total funk. For the last few years I have been civil at Christmas and not hiding in my room. My son Sean and I are both not exactly crazy about the season and we keep each other bucked up as best we can.

I even promised to take part in the church service last week and read the advent message. My wife Terry was supposed to light the candles before I read, but since she was sick with the flu a lady from the choir volunteered to do that duty. I could see people looking askance as they asked each other who that was with Jackie Cooper. I figure this is the year the divorce rumors start. And a ho ho ho to that!

I am sure by December twenty-fifth the house will have a Christmas glow. My wife is on an antibiotic and doing better. Once she gets started she is a dynamo. So bring on the season and let's get it going. And I promise to be as enthusiastic as I can be about it all.
 

 

 

 

 

©2003 Jackie K. Cooper

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