Merry Christmas to All! (I Ain't Afraid of No Grinch!)

At this this time of year, I leave out Christmas's beyond, the ones of years in the past after I become a kid--and persevered to miss those throughout most of my existence. The exhilaration changed into more by a ways then, the anticipation grew greater excessive through the day as Christmas drew near. There were events to attend, affords to stay up for, and vacation spirit filled the air. Christmas carols had been heard and sung anywhere I went. I even sang a few myself. The songs, and the music that went with them, regarded to cheer all of us up, seemed to trigger the transition into the vacation season starting the day after Thanksgiving.

I particularly omit the old days of Christmas in a rural vicinity--days of my teenagers. Christmas intended Christmas trees each year. In the u . S ., one does now not visit a tree lot to shop for a dried-out and once in a while-scraggly, exorbitantly priced Christmas tree. Instead, in rural areas one packs their these days sharpened ax, heads to the nearest wooded region, scouts out the quality fir tree there, and harvests it.

Tree-slicing day is an exciting time for kids. I consider vividly, with sentimental pining, my brother Fred's and my adventures into the woods to discover the precise tree to take home. Most times we had scouted that tree for a yr or  previous to definitely slicing it for Christmas--observed and located it exactly for the duration of the warm summer time months on the farm in Belfast, Maine.

During our summertime tree-scouting explorations we unfailingly, on our way, stopped via a effervescent, crystal-clear artesian spring--known best to us hidden in a clearing close to the edge of the woods--for a cold drink on a hot summer season afternoon. Refreshed, we endured directly to our destiny Christmas tree, or perhaps numerous bushes of differing heights, wherein we wiped clean whatever developing nearby so it would have some daylight and now not be crowded out with the aid of the underbrush. We monitored its increase until it had reached simply the right peak for our dwelling room--slightly over six ft tall.

A few weeks earlier than Christmas, and as soon as we deemed it the excellent we may want to find, we journeyed from our warm farmhouse, generally on a cold Sunday afternoon, across the in general snowy fields (there always appeared to be snow at that time of yr) to the remote woods wherein we axed it down, tied it to our Flexible Flyer sled, and slid it all of the manner domestic to the back porch. There we trimmed it as wanted, and ceremoniously moved it to our dwelling room. We had already stationed the Christmas decorations retrieved from the upstairs bed room closet--placed there with unhappiness the earlier January while we grudgingly took down our previous yr's tree, most usually on New Year's Day.

We spent the the rest of the afternoon adorning our prize tree-looping our vibrant blue, inexperienced, and purple lighting, wrapping sequences of garland around it, and striking fragile glass embellishes of all colorings and shapes--every now and then popping and stringing popcorn for an additional homey impact. The tree, handiest hours before growing in thick woods, regularly morphed from its wild, natural form to a totally Christmassy and fragrant addition to our comfortable dwelling room.

The final contact--the pièce de résistance--become a diminutive, white-clothed angel, wings of silk with silver glitter, which we placed at the very top spur of the tree. Our mom had died once I became 4-years-old, and I usually expected that angel as her coming to spend Christmas together with her boys, perched atop the tree, smiling down, along with her focused eyes maintaining watch over us. I sustained that visualization from the age of approximately 5 until my closing Christmas in Maine--1962, after I become seventeen.

Her presence atop our tree each Christmas in no way failed to give me a boundless feeling of comfort, sentience, and wellbeing. I usually glanced upward on Christmas morning earlier than commencing any gives--and there she become, constantly, smiling down at me and assuring me I become now not by myself in lifestyles after all. Christmas turned into so much more heartening seeing that angel above my head, knowing with self belief she could be with me and manual me always.

A tree freshly cut from the woods usually appears to scent a lot better, look greater Christmassy, and offer infinitely more pleasure than one bought at an city tree lot. Always did for me besides. I usually felt sorry for metropolis youngsters who by no means got to experience this firsthand.

And as for Christmas, 2015, and all seventy-one Christmas's I have lived to look, it's far still the most blissful time of year for me. Always turned into! Oh, I have to paintings at it more now than ever to get even a modicum of that Christmas spirit sentiment, and buying that Christmas tree, placing it up, decorating it, and ensuring it has water each day is greater of a chore now. I actually have long gone from constantly having a six-to-seven footer to now a 4-to-five foot tree has to do--and does.

I do have one gimmick that always appears to paintings if I haven't finished a exceptional level of Christmas spirit--if I even have no longer the entire measure of pleasure in my heart I understand must be there. My morale booster, if needed: I even have saved each Christmas card I actually have ever been mailed, or acquired some different way, for the reason that past due Nineteen Sixties. I even have them in a field, taken care of to a few degree--the Hallmark's take priority. Those who sent me a Hallmark Christmas card, a card that had imprinted on the returned "When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best," the slogan of Hallmark due to the fact about 1928, are individuals who outstanding themselves to me. I usually preferred that special card immensely with the ones unique phrases. I simply felt that that was exactly what those senders had been saying to me in my view, a Christmas message that they cared.

After nearly fifty years, since the 1960s, I even have stored every and every card. I now have over 5 hundred and that changed into the ultimate depend several years in the past. Each yr, some December night when the day is coming to an cease, I retrieve that special container from the closet, possibly with some Christmas carols playing within the history, an icey martini close at hand, and I open it and begin to examine all those playing cards. Each conjures up a reminiscence, particularly if the man or woman dated it and wrote a Christmas message in it. Those are separated from those simply having a signature. Most expensive to me are the ones from pals and family participants who're not with me in individual, but their playing cards reassure me they are present in spirit. The playing cards from the useless I area around my home as decorations--and reminiscence aides of each, out of affection and admire.

Now, that every one may additionally appear eccentric, it is able to seem extraordinary, or it could appear to you as downright ridiculous. However, no longer to me. I commenced the lifestyle almost fifty years ago without a cause to retain for some thing other than no longer throwing such satisfactory, decorative gadgets into the trash. Each had a reminiscence with it, every meant someone had taken their time to speak with me regardless of how distant. As time went by, every year I clearly were given to eagerly expect taking that field down and opening it. Not always, but often there may be a card inside the collection from someone who now not capable of send one--the departed.

That came about the primary yr of having saved the playing cards, about twenty-5 of them. As I checked out every, I came upon one which shook me to my core. Tears welled in my eyes as I examine the message written so neatly, so undoubtedly, so thoughtfully nearly precisely a yr earlier. Then he become full of existence, brimming over with Christmas spirit, and never for one minute wondering, I am certain, that this will be the ultimate card he would ship me, nor I even remotely wondering that the Christmas card I grasped in my hand--trembling slightly now from the truth this is life--might earn a place of honor henceforth at Christmastime in my domestic.

In that second I found out I had begun what could be a life-lengthy lifestyle--for me. I knew straight away I had achieved the right element and might hold to achieve this. It happened simply that honestly and just that all at once. It is probably not for absolutely everyone; I have fun the dwelling who ship cards, too, however I am particularly dedicated to those I as soon as knew right here on the earth. Those I referred to as "buddy" with out reservation, and people whose blood also guides my veins. At least for that very quick period every yr.

I even have numerous cards which might be very unique in that regard. The one I mention above, the primary of the tradition, and therefore longest to be so commemorated. My brother, Fred, who died of cancer, my sainted Aunt Alice and, almost sainted himself, Uncle Don, each deceased for some years now, are all family.

Although all who have died sooner or later through the years have their personal spot, the cards of those have a place of honor in my home break away all others. It isn't a shrine of any type, nor has their region any religious connotation. It is simply something I do out of respect and in remembrance. If you came to go to me, you would see some of Christmas cards as decorations and think nothing of it.

The manner--correctly putting every card (I do no longer have an overwhelming number of them.)--is not any big production, requires no price, and expends a minimal quantity of time and electricity. As a result, I gain contact with the past, and as I handle and area every card, one after the other, a glimpse of anyone flashes past my eyes from the inner most recesses of my thoughts. In the vision, as quickly because it comes, then is going, they may be all smiling, all happy, all content material. By doing so each is then clearer in my thoughts, every renewed in my reminiscence and mind that the beyond yr may additionally have diminished.

Think about it and, specifically in case you are young, start the identical way of life yourself. You might be rewarded as you get older on the wealth of reminiscences you could have discarded as trash that this sort of easy dependancy will preserve.

My best fear is the scourge of e-cards. Have we absolutely grow to be so busy? Have we actually grow to be so much in want of efficiency? Have we certainly come to be so insensitive? But most excruciating, have we actually become so crass?

As for Christmas, 2015, rest confident, I nonetheless "deck the halls with boughs of holly," and by no means does a Christmas move by means of that I do no longer see "Mommy kissing Santa Clause beneath the mistletoe." Those "Jingle bells, jingle bells" nevertheless "Jingle all of the way!" and "Oh! What amusing it's far... !" Oh, I nevertheless look to the sky each Christmas eve to peer if I can spot any signs and symptoms of that well-known reindeer I recall making a song about once I turned into five years antique--sixty-six years ago. Gene Autry become spot-on in 1949 when he sang the phrases, "Rudolph the crimson-nosed reindeer, you may move down in records!"

Each December at this time, I am constantly "dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to realize," nearly each 12 months at my domestic as a kid in Belfast, Maine. Then we dreamed for snow every day until Christmas Day, and generally our dream was fulfilled. Something about snow on Christmas makes the day best.

The track "White Christmas," written by means of Irving Berlin and sung by using Bing Crosby in 1942, the lyrics of which struck a chord with the infantrymen preventing in the Second World War, and has persisted to be specially famous with all military ladies and men faraway from home to this day. I vividly recall being in Vietnam as a United States Marine for Christmas 1968. "White Christmas," broadcast on Armed Forces Radio, could often be heard on the ones little hand-held portable radios--someone continually had one--and the phrases tugged at our heartstrings, in addition to, greater importantly, gave us a feeling of desire that subsequent Christmas we would all be at home with our households in peace, not at struggle.

So to all of you, where ever you'll be, I want you a very Merry Christmas! And please know that:

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

With every Christmas card I write.

May your days be merry and bright.

And might also all your Christmases be white