O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum!

 "When I was a little boy, it was an awful long time between Christmases. It seemed like Christmas came every five years or so." This is a quote from Rev. Havis Crawford, an old preacher I knew many years ago. As I grow older (and older) this truth comes home to me more and more.

A year ago this December was a sad time for our family. My wife's sister, Anna, was in the last stages of her battle with cancer; my mother-in-law was going deeper into the grips of Alzheimers disease and our attention and concern was focused on them. I find it really hard to believe that twelve months have passed so quickly.

As I was doing my last minute, Christmas Eve chores and errands, my mind went back to a Christmas from my childhood. It's one of those good memories that hopefully I can relate to you.

From the time I was born until I was almost six years old, we lived on a farm at "county line". The name came from it being on the eastern side of Howell County, bordering with Oregon County. My Dad worked as a carpenter but he had cattle, some hay fields; and one large alfalfa field, situated on the east side of the place. The alfalfa field was surrounded by woods with a border of sage grass, and among the sage grass were a few small cedar trees.

I'm sure Dad had scoped it out before, but on this particular day, he loaded us up in the truck to go "find" a Christmas Tree. This was a family affair with all of us packed into Dad's 1960's Chevy, short-bed, step-side truck - Mom, Dad, my brother Ralph and myself. (And we did bring along our two dogs - My dog Midgee and Ralph's dog, Queenie!)

We drove from the house, through the barnyard gate, up the lane past the trash dump, to the northeast corner of the alfalfa field and parked on the north side. I really don't know if Dad made a pretense of "searching" for the perfect tree but we settled on a little cedar tree that was all by itself in an ocean of sage grass.

Dad cut the tree and we hauled it back to the house in the pickup bed. Our Christmas tree stand was ready so we set the tree up in it, tightened the screws into the base of the tree, set it on one of the end tables that had been placed in front of the picture window, put some water in the stand's bowl to keep the tree from drying out, put a "Christmasy" blanket around the bottom of the tree - then we were FINALLY ready to decorate!

Things have really changed in the Christmas decorating department through the years also. My Mom had only one (rather small) box of decorations. (Contrast that with me, hauling twelve large tubs of Christmas decorations from the basement for my wife this year!)

Since Dad's Christmas duties stopped short of the decorating, we (Mom, Ralph and I) proceeded to trim our little Tannenbaum. Our decorations consisted of strings of large bulb lights (non-twinkling), glass bulbs, silver "icicles" and a lighted star for the top.

There really must be a fireplace with a chimney for Santa Claus to slide down - but our house didn't have one. Mom took care of that by putting up a cardboard one that had a cheery fire, a chimney and a mantle to hang our stockings from!

The Bible tells us that there is "nothing new under the sun". I have found that to be true, even in Christmas presents. One of my presents in 1967 was Legos - In 2024, my grandson is all into Legos!

So, on this Christmas Eve, 2024, I am thankful for many, many things. My family - wife, daughter, son-in-law, grandsons, Riggs', Beans and all the extended aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins. My friends and fellow professionals, my health, my church and fellow believers and so much more.

Most of all, I am thankful for the greatest gift ever given, the babe in the manger...

"Behold, I bring you good tidings, of great joy, which shall be to ALL people. for unto is born this day, in the City of David, a savior who is CHRIST THE LORD!"

Wishing one and all a Merry Christmas and a Blessed and Prosperous New Year!!