Peace On Earth the Angels Sang

Some people say that Christmas is about memories. I'm happy to have many wonderful memories of Christmas Past. One of my favorite memories is of the angel that always topped our family tree when I was a child. One of my fondest memories was the year my Dad put a little speaker in our tree and hooked it up to his reel to reel tape player. From another room we were able to speak into a microphone and talk through the tree as if we were the angel on the top of the tree. I still remember watching my little cousin looking up at the angel and thinking the angel was truly speaking to her. It's a silly little memory but I still remember the look of wonder in that little girl's eyes (sorry, but I can't remember if it was Sharon or Patty, I'm sure Sue was too big to fall for it) as she listened to the angel call her by name.

Years later when I married, my husband and I picked out a top for our first Christmas tree we picked an angel. He had grown up in a house that used a star on the top of their tree, but I really wanted to have an angel so we found a pretty little angel which topped our tree for over 30 years. When my parents stopped putting up a tree, I wanted to put up the old angel but my husband insisted that our tree be topped with the angel we had picked out. I was touched that it meant so much to him. A few years later I found out that the angel meant more to him then I did and we divorced. My first Christmas alone (well, he was still living in the house at the time) I put up the tree and after a trip over to my Mom's to get the old family angel, she moved to the top of my tree. Now each year that I place that lovely old angel on the tree, my heart melts just a little with memories of my childhood.

This year I was having a hard time with putting up any decorations. I do believe it was because I've been so busy with my two jobs and limited time to really prepare for the fast approaching holidays. The thought of putting up that big tree was rather overwhelming. Then I had a bright idea of seeing if I could put up half of the tree! Well, thinking and doing are usually pretty different for me and I wondered if I would actually do it. Today was an early dismissal from school for the younger grades, so I took the day off from Aspire to do all my runs at school. I had some time this afternoon and down to the cellar I went to see if I could indeed use just half the tree and sure enough, it looked like it would work! I put up the tree and then headed back to work for one more run. I returned home a short time later and started decorating my little tree. How nice not to have to climb on a stool to reach the top of the tree to "throw" the lights around it. Maybe now I can really start feeling the holiday spirit!