Christmas Day plus three...

Christmas comes, Christmas goes.... and every year it slips by in a heart-beat. The decorations that I arranged (and re-arranged) around the house during the first week of November seem as if they haven't been up for seven days, much less for seven weeks.

We had friends here on Christmas Day for dinner..... J & L came over with a huge bowl of tossed fresh greens sprinkled with bits of every sort of vegetable, nuts and cheese to make it a "great big salad" as the first course for our holiday meal. My husband made his 'killer mashed potatoes' and his 'big fat Greek stuffing.' I made my somewhat-famous salmon-crabcakes. I've made those for quite a few Christmas dinners along the way here. When Miss C was younger, I made them in the shape of Christmas trees, and one year C helped me make them and she had the idea that little green peas tucked into the 'branches' of the tree-shaped cakes would be the perfect touch.... and that's just what she did.... she used a toothpick to press the peas into the mixture so they wouldn't fall off. Everyone smiled when we brought those plates into the dining room that Christmas.... she wouldn't let anyone else into the kitchen that year because she wanted the green pea-decorated cakes to be a surprise.

The cows that showed up in our yard on Christmas Eve morning came back again that afternoon.... 14 of them, all from a neighbor's pasture on the other side of the hills here. I guess one cow got out and the rest of them followed.... and they ended up right outside our windows. My husband stood out on our porch taking photos and the cows just looked up at us as if we were intruding into their space, rather than the other way around. My husband got the cows out of our yard and down the hill, and after they got back to their own property, we didn't see them again. Thankfully, they didn't break any of our picket fences that are around the property here.

My husband and I opened up our gifts on Christmas night, way after dinner, and after J & L said good-night. Books and ornaments... always on the Christmas lists around here.... with a few surprises from QVC tossed into the mix. (Note to myself: No more gadgets from the QVC channel for my husband.)

The day after Christmas, we took the big tree down.... it had gotten dried out and it just had to go. I took down the ornaments, my husband took the lights off.... and then he carried it out into one of the pastures where the birds and small animals are probably already nesting in it. Once again, I asked my husband the same question that I ask every Christmas as I'm about to clean up all the needles that drop from the 'real' tree..... "Don't you think we could find an artificial tree that looks like a real tree?" His answer is always the same: "No way." (I try not to roll my eyes as I get the broom and the vacuum.)

The day after that.... was it just yesterday?..... I started taking down the rest of the Christmas decorations... into the boxes went the Santas and the angels and the little elves........ into the closet went all the table-top trees. The top shelf of that storage closet now looks like a multi-colored forest... the red tree with gold ornaments, the blue tree with silver ornaments, the green tree with the Lenox ornaments, the silver tree with the fruit & vegetable ornaments, the white porcelain tree with the red birds (that Sweet Pea just loved), the red-twig tree with the crystal baubles, the white sparkling tree with the snowmen ornaments, the green feather tree with the Santas and glass candy canes, the pink tree with all the pink ornaments, the gold tree with all the beaded ornaments...... what color tree would you like? I probably have just that very tree....

The only tree left standing now is the 1950s aluminum tree... it's still on the angel-table in the living room..... I don't mind leaving that tree up for New Year's Eve because of its silver color, and most of my New Year's Eve decorations are bright silver. Speaking of which..... we invited J&J and J&G over for dinner on the 31st. We're "borrowing" H&K's New Year's theme from last year..... we asked them to come over at 4:30 in the afternoon. At 5:00, we'll have dinner and celebrate Midnight in London...... at 6:00, we'll have dessert and celebrate Midnight in Paris.

By the time Midnight in Texas comes along, our friends will have probably gone home because everyone will be tired from family visits with children and grandchildren.... and then my husband and I will most likely find the TV channel that is showing NYC's Time Square.... and we will watch "The Ball" as it descends at midnight, we'll see Dick Clark wishing everyone a Happy New Year (and we'll remember how young he always looked)... and we'll talk about the days when Guy Lombardo & his band played at The Waldorf on New Year's Eve and the music was perfect and the couples were dressed up and dancing and getting misty-eyed when the clock struck midnight.

New Year's Eve with Guy Lombardo..... at the Waldorf in New York City.... me sitting on the floor in my grandmother's living room, with my Aunt Dolly on the sofa... watching the dancing couples, oooh-ing and aaah-ing over the gowns and the jewelry.... and having a little dish of ice cream or an Italian pastry at midnight.... both Aunt Dolly and me... whispering so we wouldn't wake up grandma and grandpa as they slept upstairs.

I get so sappy at Christmas. Ditto for New Year's Eve.