A FEW MORE LINES FROM MY BOOK

We always got a real Christmas tree. It wasn't really
Christmas without a real evergreen tree like Jesus had.
It was purchased around Dec. 1 every year. (Dad would
say he stole it off the lot). 

It was taken down on NewYears day.
Needless to say, when we took it outside and put a
match to the sucker, it simply exploded like raw gasoline.

I looked forward to that each year.
It is nothing short of a miracle that we didn't have a
major fire in our home with mom and dad smoking their Pall
Malls, candles, and me, loving the whole concept of beautiful
fire.

I can't remember mom ever buying a decoration for the
tree. They were all heirlooms or something made by the kids
in school.

I made the world's ugliest ornament by putting paper
mache on a potato, painting it white, and dabbing red spots
on it. ( My mom cherished it.

The ornaments were old, faded and chipped. They
ranged from big round ones, the size of a grapefruit, `to
very small, like a cherry. Then, there were the long, slender
ones that, I think, were supposed to look like the Christmas
star. They had real fragile centers that would disintegrate
at the slightest touch. (Whoops, there goes another one,
Sorry!)












We had some paper chains, popcorn strings, tinsel, and a
well worn silver star on top.

We believed with all our heart, that we had the most
beautiful tree in town.

When brother Dick got married and moved out, he got
an aluminum tree that had a color wheel that reflected
three different colors in succession.

We viewed it as a sacrilege,
A real Christmas required a real Christmas tree!

Christmas Eve. St. Louis. Circa 1960.

Outside the frosted kitchen window (by the way, the
frost looked like' little white pine trees or tiny little
ferns that God painted around the edges of the pane of
glass)

I saw the misty hoar frost upon the lawn (not to be confused
with "hooker" frost), and suddenly, huge snowflakes
(about the size of pit-bull puppies), started falling down, oh,
so gently.

Down, down, down, then up a little and down again and; a
little to the left, then right a wee bit, rocking to and fro in
the sacred Christmas wind that once cooled the manger
where Jesus slept so adorably.

Pure, white, pristine, unadulterated snow. (About three
feet deep, according to the bicycle handlebars).

The porch light revealed hidden "diamonds" in the
frozen white "angel's dandruff", while a bunny had to hop
way up and down, way up and down, to transmigrate himself
(or herself) through the deep cold pile of a billion unique and
completely individual, snowflakes.