Keeping loved ones close at Christmas......

Each Christmas certain traditions seem to take a more important place in our home.  It might mean the placement of tree in our living room gets a premier spot, or how the manger is arranged and lite. It has more to do with my mood, and my inherent need for "changing things up". 

I have some treasures that are over 40 years old. At the end of the holiday I carefully clean, wrap and pack each one before putting them away....until next year. This is how they they become cherished treasurers, taking extra care of them. The following year they are ready to take a new place of prominence somewhere in our home.  This way, it seems we have new things. Changing things up is good. And I can confidently say "that old thing?" when someone asks if I bought something this year.  Not a chance!

Although I switched things up like usual, it all of a sudden occurred to me that a few things had prominence that hadn't been seen in my house for years.  A huge red poinsettia, an old manager, and a cookie press to make spritz cookies. These things hadn't been pulled out in a long time. I even pulled out a window wreath made from an old wire hanger strung with lights and wrapped with a banner of silk holly. 

All of a sudden it hit me. These were things my mother would have had out, things she cherished in her own holiday traditions, and things I may have thought tacky a time or two.  But not this year. 

Mom is gone. This is the first Christmas we won't laugh about her insisting she wear her fur coat and hat no matter how warm it was outside, her goofy Christmas earrings she insisted on wearing. I don't particularly like poinsettias but I bought myself a poinsettia because she loved them.....really loved them. She worked like crazy to keep them alive until next Christmas. Those craggy bare stems drove me nuts by July. Toss them out I'd say, but that was tyranny.  The old manger was covered with this grass like straw which made it impossible to really clean, which meant decades of dust embedded in the roof lines. But that dust might be of mom, so I'm okay with it this year.  I haven't made spritz cookies in years. She loved them. And I have her old German cookie recipe, and antique press so both came out this Christmas. Those rich sweet buttery cookies are really very good, and better a day or two later.  My homage to my mothers mad baking skills. 

So mom, you are close, in me cherishing the things you did.  Merry Christmas mom, you are greatly missed.