The Mouse That's Missing from My Christmas Tree

When it comes to Christmas, I am all about tradition, so my Christmas tree has looked the same for many years now, decorated with ornaments I have collected for years.

The ornaments included the little red Santa from the small tabletop tree I had in my first apartment.  The drummer boy we purchased the first year we got a ‘real’ tree, who sat lonely in the middle of the big tree because we didn’t have many ornaments to accompany him.  It became a tradition to begin the decorating with the little drummer boy as we played Emily Lou Harris’s rendition of that song.

The tree also included the hand-made ornaments from a few years later.  The Disney ornaments I painted with my oldest daughter when she was two years old.

I also collected ornaments when we traveled and have one from each trip representing countries all over the world, even from places like Nepal and China, where you might not expect to find a lot of Christmas ornaments.

And then there was the little mouse that was given to my youngest daughter when she was three because she had an imaginary friend who was a mouse.  Every year when I decorated our tree I remembered again all of the times I had to lift that imaginary mouse into the car as we were getting ready to go someplace.

So decorating our tree each year gave me a chance to revisit those events in my life.  Very rewarding, all warm and fuzzy.  But the thing about it was, the tree was never very attractive.  That conglomeration of ornaments never fit together quite right.

Through the years, I always admired some of my friends’ trees that looked so beautifully decorated, with everything matching and orderly and splendid looking.  I had especially admired a solid white tree at a friend’s house with all white ornaments, many hand made.  It was very splendid.  And I always wanted one.

So this year I got a white tree with matching ornaments and left all of the memories in storage.  I did pull them out and look through them.  The memories are still there.

I Know Where the Elves Live

Source: Jack Flanagan, Flickr, https://farm9.staticflickr.com

No really.  And it’s not the North Pole—at least not exclusively.  I saw them last year.

Not far from my home here in northern Tennessee there’s another home high on a hill.  I’ve been there before for political functions.  It’s quite an elaborate spread.  At the foot of the hill there’s another house (maybe a caretaker’s house?), a rather nice, ancient two-story brick house.

Leading in to this whole estate is a wonderful wooden covered bridge over a small stream.  Every year at Christmas the wooden bridge is lined with Christmas lights of all sorts—angels, reindeer, Santas, snowmen, and lights, lights galore, all glowing in the dark.

One year my two oldest granddaughters were visiting for the weekend to make a gingerbread house.  One night we drove them down to see the lights.  We went over the wooden bridge and they oohed and ahhed at the lights.  We stopped to turn around just in front of the house at the bottom of the hill.  In the upstairs window we could see a person sitting in front of the window.  Just the shadowy outline.  Without any prompting one of the granddaughters whispered, “I think that’s one of Santa’s elves.”  The other agreed it had to be.

I know where they live now, and if you come here some December night you might be able to see them.

Getting My Friday Night Fix

Much of my television watching involves watching the news.  I don’t care for the cable news networks that have 24 hour coverage and not much substantive journalism, but I do usually watch a nightly news program.  I especially like the PBS News Hour because of their in depth coverage and lack of sensationalism.

Every Friday night on the News Hour they have a special segment that I religiously watch called Shields and Brooks, that’s Washington Post columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.  I have been watching this segment on the News Hour since before they were Shields and Brooks.  They were Gergen and Shields when I began watching it.

In this segment the columnists engage in a succinct and substantive analysis of the week’s major news stories.  Mark Shields is a more liberal columnist and David Brooks a more conservative columnist.  I especially enjoy this segment because I want to hear both sides of the issues.

I read an article online once called 'Can We Agree to Disagree in a Nice Way'.   For a lesson in how to disagree in a nice way, this segment on the News Hour is a perfect example of how to do just that.

Mark Shields and David Brooks often take opposite sides of an issue, but they are never disagreeable.  They state their opinions in polite, civil ways, and show remarkably  good will and respect toward each other.  They also have an in depth knowledge of the subjects they are discussing.

Their discussions are very different from many political discussions one might hear on cable news shows, and it’s an example many of us might try to emulate.  

Honeysuckles Grow Wild

I live on five acres of mostly wooded land.  When I got ready to build a house here, I had to have a driveway cut up the hill to the building site.  When the bulldozer came to build the driveway, I followed the driver around as he was bulldozing.  I wanted to be sure he didn't cut down any more trees than necessary.  He told me he understood because he had two acres and had 182 trees on those acres.  I decided that someone who had counted his trees was safe as a bulldozer driver for my property. 

As a result of this tree-saving activity, our driveway curves up the hill in and around several trees.  It makes driving up to the home site a little more interesting.

One day in early spring not long after construction had started, John and I drove up to the property after returning from a trip.  As we crossed over the little stream at the bottom and started up the hill with the windows of our car opened, we were greeted by smells of the honeysuckles growing wild in the woods beside the driveway.

Honeysuckle vines can be annoying, but when I'm working on landscaping around here, I always remember that day driving up the hill as we returned from a trip and the welcoming aroma of the honeysuckles greeting us.   

Sometimes it's just hard to improve on God's work. 

A Little Alone Time

My son-in-law recently posted this interchange between their two daughters on facebook:

Josie (to her younger sister): “No, Anna! I want to be alone!”

And three-year old Anna responds: “I want to watch you be alone, Josie.”

Seven-year old Josie is the most gregarious of our four granddaughters and never sees a stranger, but I can already see in her this genuine need to sometimes be alone.  Anna doesn’t understand this very well yet.

John is off playing golf today, and, like Josie, I am enjoying my time alone. 

After I met John, while we were just beginning to get to know each other, in one of the first emails I ever sent him, I told him I was the kind of person who needed a lot of time alone.  If we were going to be coupled, it was something I thought he needed to know.

To his credit, John has always perfectly understood this.  And if from time to time I need to spend time away from him, he understands and doesn’t take it personally.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t feel thankful he is in my life, but there are times when I’m glad for him to not be around—to watch me be alone.

Life's Treasures

In many ways, I like the way my life has turned out.  But there are, of course, some things I’d change.

I’ve been outdoors today—cut up a dogwood tree that had died.  Dogwoods make very good firewood.  That’s a fact I didn’t know before moving here.  I could not have recognized a dogwood tree without its foliage and flowers either, even though it has a very distinctive bark.

I can recognize many of the trees in my woods now, even in the winter, by the way they grow and by their bark.  I can also recognize the call of many birds I didn’t know before.

I love now to teach my granddaughters some of these things when they’re here.  The loud woodpecker or the cardinal saying, “Pretty, pretty, pretty.” The heart shaped leaves of the redbud tree.  I want them to grow up with an appreciation of the things around them.

A poem of William Wordworth’s has long been one of my favorites:
“The world is too much with us; late and soon
  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
  Little we see in Nature that is ours.
  We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.”

I first came across this poem a half century ago, and it has always stayed with me.  I was reminded of it again today while working outside.

If I had my life to live over, I’d give less of my heart away.

Confessions of a Pacifist

In a recent dream I had one of my granddaughters got lost in a crowd.  She was walking right behind me and when I turned around she had disappeared.  

I began running back up the broad steps we were descending, searching for her in a mass of people.  I was frantic but finally spied her a short distance ahead and scrambled to get to her.  Just as I got to her I saw a man in front of me reaching out to grab her.  

The stranger put his hand on her as I caught up to him.  I pulled him away, put my hand on his shoulder and said quietly, ‘If you harm her, I will kill you’.

I woke up then and knew I had meant every word I had said. 

I was a little surprised at my ready willingness to kill.  I am not normally a combative person, but in that dream, and in my life, I know that some things are worth fighting--even killing or dying--for.  

Most things, however, are not.