Tuesday, January 09, 2007, 21:44
Heave Ho -- It's Out the Window We Go. . .
I've always thought that the route by which the Christmas tree leaves the church is much less dignified than the route by which the tree enters the church.
Monday evening, a group of us got together to take down the church Christmas tree. Well, okay, it wasn't a very big group. Only three of us. When we decorated the tree at the end of November, there was a much larger group.
Anyway, we removed the ornaments and lights and gathered up the Nativity scene arranged beneath the tree and packed it away. I always wonder how old that Nativity set is -- although I think it's really two Nativity sets put together. I think they are both antiques. Probably hand-painted.
Once the ornaments and lights and the Nativity set were packed away, it was time for the sexton to go to work with his power saw. In only a few minutes, all of the branches were sawed off the tree and the branches had been tossed out the stained glass window that had been opened specifically for that purpose.
Before I could say, "This tree has a big enough trunk to make a cross out of it for Easter" the top had been sawed off and the trunk sawed in half.
So much for that idea.
Then the pieces of trunk were tossed out the window, too.
When the tree comes into the church, it is reverently laid on a blue tarp and carefully pulled up the steps and down the aisle to the front of the church where it is gently put into the tree stand and pushed into an upright position. After that, people who have come to decorate it painstakingly place ornaments and lights and stand back to make sure the decorations are even and not lopsided.
Putting the tree up is a thoughtful, spiritual process.
Taking it down is hurried and matter-of-fact.
I don't know why it bothers me to see the Christmas tree hacked to pieces after Christmas is over, but it does.
In only a few minutes, all that remained was a pile of needles on the red carpeting.
And a window that did not want to close.
Try as he might, my husband could not get the nearly 100 year old window shut.
"What's the matter?" asked the sexton.
"I think the window weight is stuck," Randy said.
The long and short of it is, the sexton ended up cutting the rope that held the window weight. He did not let go of the rope, of course, otherwise the weight would have landed in the bottom of the wall. Even as it was, you could hear it clanging inside the window casing.
I think it took longer for them to get the window closed than it did to throw pieces of the tree outside.
After all, you know how those old buildings are.
Then again, maybe that was an old building's way of saying it doesn't especially care for the callous treatment of the Christmas tree after Christmas, either.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, January 08, 2007, 02:41
Another Christmas. . .
Now that we've had Christmas with my family, and all of the Christmases are taken care of on both sides of the family, I can officially say that Christmas has come and gone.
My family came here on Saturday to celebrate Christmas with Randy and I.
As is usually the case, we ended up with plenty of food. I made chili and an apple salad and the taco chip dip for taco chips, and everyone else brought something, too. We had enough food for 2 Christmases -- salads, Christmas cookies and candies, cheese slices, a cheese ball, crackers, an assortment of pickles (dill pickles, sweet pickles, beet pickles). By the time everyone left late Saturday afternoon, I could barely waddle. Today I'm thinking that I probably don't need to eat for a week (except that I bet I will!).
We tried something different this Christmas. Each person brought 1 wrapped gift (less than $5 each) for a "him," one for a "her," and two for "either." Then we drew names and people went and picked out a package.When we'd gone through all the names, we drew names again until everyone had four gifts.
This Christmas was especially noteworthy, too, because it was my great nephew's first Christmas. Eli enjoyed himself immensely. He loved playing with all of the wrapping paper -- and seeing which gifts were especially for him! He kind of liked eating the wrapping paper, too.
For quite a while, he wore a green bow on the back of his head. I'm not sure who stuck it there (Randy maybe?) but Eli didn't seem to mind a bit. He enjoyed playing with a little toy tractor set that made sounds and had farm animals that rode in little cars behind the tractor.
Randy made a counting stick for Eli. It will be a while before he learns how to count to 10, but the beads are made out of wood from the cedar tree that Eli's great grandpa and I planted in the front yard when this house was first built. My dad, Roy Ralph, would have gotten a kick out of watching Eli Roy Ralph play with beads made out of Roy's tree.
Eli got a big kick out of the little stuffed lion I got for him at a craft sale, too. In fact, the lion gave him the giggles. Eli is prone to the giggles. When something strikes him as funny, he will laugh and laugh and laugh. His mother took the lion and pointed it toward him and said "grrrrrr!" in a low, quiet voice. For some reason this struck him as funny. Eli's dad says he will giggle like that for as long as you want to do the thing that makes him giggle.
If I ever see the lady who made the little lion, I'm going to tell her what joy it brought to a little boy at Christmas.
As for Snowflake, we kept her in her kitty carrier for most of the afternoon. We were afraid she would get into "helping" too much with the wrapping paper and also that she would be constantly underfoot. Snowflake loves wrapping paper. When I was wrapping gifts in the morning, she unrolled the whole roll of paper across the living room floor, and then she and Sophie played under, on and around the paper. I said that if the gifts looked like they were wrapped by a four-year-old it's because I had too much help! Randy said if one of the gifts was wiggling and we couldn't find Snowflake that we'd have to consider that possibility that I *might* have inadvertently wrapped up into a gift. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of the kitties helping.
I did, however, get a picture of Snowflake a few days earlier taking a nap with Randy on the couch. She loves to snuggle under Randy's chin and next to his neck.
And speaking of kitty help, my little tabby BobbyCat, who spends most of the summer outside and most of the winter inside, loves to sleep in the chair in my office. I have spent many hours perched on the edge of the chair working while Bobby sleeps in the chair behind me.
Between Bobby sleeping behind me and Snowflake jumping on the keyboard with all four feet, it's a wonder I ever get anything done!
LeAnn R. Ralph
