Snowy's First Christmas Tree

I feel like I've been running for weeks with no letup. All of the Christmas decorations aren't up yet, and it was already time to put up the tree. The real tree, not the theme trees, which I enjoy, but the real Christmas tree, with all the ornaments we've bought together and the PharMor ornaments and the McCrory ornaments and the Woolworth star "Little Blaze," and waterfalls of tinsel, the one I love.

This year was a bit of a twist because half of a string of lights was out. However, I had two strings of the same number, if not the same type, of lights that I had bought a couple of years back at Hobby Lobby because I liked the way the covers were two-colored. They pretty much fit exactly into the bare space left by the errant light string, but it seemed like ages to set them in place and fluff the tree, which spends the rest of the year crammed into a corner of a closet. (It's not done it any good, either; it looks like we need a new one, as there is at least one bent branch.) I spent a bunch of time replacing faded blue bulbs on the strings still on the tree from the string I took off, as it appears the bulbs are still good, it's just half the string that's off.

I started at ten and finished just as James walked in the door sometime after five, having layered a waterfall of tinsel all over the tree and just placed each manger figure carefully in its place in the stable under the tree. About half these manger figures are probably older than I am, carefully bought one and two at the time from the bins of nativity figures in the basement store of W.T. Grant and perhaps Woolworth's and Newberry's. The sheepdog or the goat are the newest figures, and those were bought in the 1960s. The only figure not original to the set was a similar figure that fit with the set that I found in an antique shop in downtown Marietta.

Watched several Christmas things while putting up the tree—Christmas Is and The City That Forgot About Christmas (the two Lutheran Church specials with Benji and his sheepdog Waldo), and then all four Lassie Christmas stories with Timmy—and then put on Holiday Traditions on Dish. Tonight we ordered Chinese in and watched a bunch of Christmasy things: Charlie Brown Christmas, the Grinch, Twas the Night Before Christmas, A Very Merry Cricket, Mickey's Christmas Carol, and finally The Small One.