THE AFTERMATH OF CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR

I like Christmas, no strike that, I LOVE Christmas but I'm glad it only comes once a year. Every year I promise myself to make it simple and tidy and every tear it ends up being big, complicated, unpredictable, sloppy and sentimental.

The tree we got was big again. I can't see getting a small tree. A tree needs to be noble and awe-inspiring. It should never fit comfortably into the room it's intended for. Putting it up should be

difficult, the branches should knock over and break fragile knickknacks on shelves all over the room. There should be fights about how to fit the giant stump into the stand.

I like decorating a tree with a mixture of multi-colored and white lights. I like balls of many colors and lots of happy little toy and angel ornaments. When my kids were little they used to decorate by putting ornaments only on the branches they could reach so that the tree looked naked except for a kazillion balls on the bottom. They were really proud of their work and would frequently stand back and look at it, struggling to hold back a tear, they were so overcome with the profundity of it all. After everyone had gone to sleep everybody in the family would, one after the other, sneak into the living room and re-arrange the balls to suit their own tastes. I can't tell you how many fights this caused..and still causes, even now. I miss the kind of Christmas tree that was a simple, fragrent pine with lots of space between the branches. They looked a bit scraggley but you could hang tinsel and ornaments on them and they would hang straight down. Todays trees are more like round bushes that are cut into cone shapes with a chain saw. They're nice and plush...too plush! Nothing put on them ever hangs down. Ornaments just sort of lie on the branches. I have to admit that they look good though.

I made only one major blunder this year. My son lives in New York City now and he could only spend a week with us over the holiday. I was looking forward to doing all sorts of things with him but none of them materialized because he spent most of his time visiting his old school buddies. I was so disappointed at what I considered a snub that I half snubbed him when it came time to bundle him off on the plane back to NY. After the plane took off I felt horrible in the extreme! I should have learned my lesson from earlier years: never, I mean never, snub anybody over the Christmas holiday, even if they deserve it! We have the whole rest of the year for snubs. Snubs defeat the whole purpose of Christmas and make the snuber feel miserable. I think I'll call my kid when I finish writing this.

In spite of this I had a great Christmas and I hope you did too!