The best present one can hope for this year is to spend time together and may the spirit of Christmas warm your home and fill your heart. – Anonymous
All of us once were children full of wonder and joy with a heart that could hardly wait for Christmas. My family found our trees where the Boy Scouts and the Optimist club sold Christmas trees. The day I remember the most when we picked out our tree they offered to spray the trees from a selection of colors. I was probably five or six years old. “Momma, can we get a pink Christmas tree?” She succumbed to the idea and I thought it wonderful. As the years went by Momma would bring up the pink Christmas tree and called it, “The worst Christmas tree she had ever seen.” Looking back, it was probably an awful tree but what a treat for a 5-year-old little girl. It was magical. In time came artificial Christmas trees. Perhaps you remember the silver tinseled tree with a small fan that rotated a rainbow of colors twirling on the tree. Later Christmas trees would look like trees with artificial green branches and needles and sold at department stores. Then came the Christmas tree adorned with ready-made lights and ornaments. Unpack from a box, enjoy the season, and put it back away for another Christmas.
At the Prairie home where we live, Cedar trees are abundant. For a number of years while the girls were still at home we’d trek over hill and dell through ditches, mud, and briars, to find the perfect tree for the best Christmas tree ever. The traditional tree would be up to 18’ hauled into the living room and tied up to the top of the stairs.
In time the daughters had their own places and put up their own Christmas trees. Last year Sam cut the top out of a Cedar tree, that would be our last natural Christmas tree. This year we put up lights and strung them across the windows. The season will be spending time together and with friends, doing something for someone else seems more in the spirit of our Christmas.
In my younger years I rang the bells with the Salvation Army. It was a lot of fun and mostly very cold. I was ringing the bell in one hand and drinking hot coffee in the other when three black guys walked up looking all together like football linebackers. They drop their money in my coffee cup. I jumped, they were shocked, we laughed, and they offered to get me another coffee. Another time a mother and daughter crossed the parking lot when the daughter hollered out, “Ms. Shannon, we gave a quarter.” Her mother turned and hollered back, “We gave a lot more!”
However, you choose to celebrate this Christmas, count your blessings, be kind to one another, remember Christmas is a feeling, not a season. From Charles Dickens “I will Honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year, and Peace on Earth goodwill to men.”
Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 44 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
