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Show Time for Christmas in all its decor j By MAKCELLA WALKER Making Christmas bright is getting to be harder and harder all the time. We must have gone to a dozen Christmas Tree lots Saturday before we found the tree that was "fat and affordable" at the same time. I believe in putting Christmas trees up early in December. They smell nice, and they add such a festive touch to the home, but most of all, the time of Christmas goes so fast that if you do not get them up early the time is gone before you have really had an opportunity to enjoy it fully. My kids like fat trees. I kind of like a bit thinner tree, one that allows for the ornaments to hang down between bet-ween branches and be seen. Not the kids. They like fat trees. We have a fat tree. I'll admit that it is pretty in its way. It is certainly large and fills the entire corner of the living room very adequately. Never mind that we have a small front room. The thing I like best about the whole thing is that now the girls are old enough that they like to decorate the tree and all I have to do is watch them and say "How pretty!" at the right time. They also put up the other decorations and they do a good job. It is wonderful for a very uncreative mother who used to have to do it all alone. This year for the first time in many years, we have some real live mistletoe. I want all the cute boys in town to make a note of that because both of my teenage girls would like to be kissed beneath that mistletoe before the season is out. For your information it is located right above the door to the front room where it goes into the entry jp.gr. blab By -ZTVV MARCELLA J WALKER way. In fact, any friend or neighbor who would like to bring their sweetheart in for a kiss under the mistletoe are - invited to do so as long as they flaunt it in front of my husband so he might get the hint. Christmas trees are one of my favorite things. I love to go for drives at this time of year and look at the Christmas trees glowing from the windows of the homes we pass. As. I was growing up, our tree was a very traditional one. It was just a plain ordinary Christmas tree, just like everyone elses. What made it special was the ornaments which were different from everyone elses and which had special meaning just to our family. There were the red, green and blue balls which had Santa and his reindeer flying through the air on them. There was the green bell, in my favorite color, that I put on each year. There was the little red ball, my very own, that I hung on the tree. And there was the silver star for the top. There were the homemade decorations that we made at school that Mom was good enough to let us hang on the tree. There were icicles. Not all trees have icicles any more. In fact, Joyce Poulson, who does the gorgeous tree in the City Hall each year, said that it is hard to get good icicles anymore. To me, icicles make the tree look complete. That is probably because when I was young that was the way we completed the tree. Presents under the tree make it look finished, too. I love presents under the tree. When we were young, we would give the boxes a little shake and see if they rattled at all. This, I suppose, could give us a clue of some sort of what might be inside. When I was little I used to check under the tree each morning for days before Christmas to see if just by chance old Santa had come on the wrong day. One of the most memorable Christmas tree experiences is one we had a number of years ago when the children were very small. We had used an aluminum tree for several years. It looked nice with red balls and a revolving light beneath it which made gorgeous reflections on the walls and ceiling. That aluminum tree had been in place for a few weeks and was still standing there waiting for Santa when the children went to bed this particular Christmas Eve. After the kids were all tucked in bed and asleep, we went to a nearby Christmas Tree lot and bought a live tree for about $1. We took down the J aluminum tree and put the real tree in its place. We put the lights and decorations on it and Santa left the I presents beneath the tree. j The next morning as the children (our family always goes in together to see what Santa brought) entered s the room, they stopped dead still. II Their mouths came open and thev stared straight ahead at the tree, the Ii live tree which glowed with lights 'jJ and decorations. 0 They did not look down at the j II presents under the tree. They just !:a stared at the tree. The older ones ;'.n asked where the tree came from and 'a we said that Santa must have ill brought it. That was a special tree in W my memory. i p; I have heard a lot of tales recently ! j about how long some people keep s their Christmas trees up. One said her neighbor kept her's up until one of her children's birthday in February. Another said that her neighbor kept it up until Memorial Day. One lady said that her neighbor had an artificial tree and she did not ! like to take it down and put it up, so .' she just put it in the corner of her j family room, covered it with a sheet !' and left it there all year, uncovering jy it in time for Christmas. Lots of people take their tree down V the day after Christmas. I at least 1 tk want ours to stay up through New , Years. After that I will willingly take it down. Yet, I hate to see it taken down. It represents something pretty special. A warmth and friendliness of the Christmas season u is symbolized in the tree and when it is put away for another year, so is all r' that goodness we felt. j i'' I would like the beauty of the Christmas tree to be in our home all year long, even though the tree itself might not be there anymore. |