When I was a little girl the fairies always brought the Christmas tree. Every morning for what was probably the whole of early December, my brother and I would race downstairs to see if the fairies had been in the night. Day after day we were disappointed, until finally the glorious morning came and we rushed down to find the Christmas tree in all its glory standing in the corner of the sitting room. In retrospect, as it was a well-worn artificial tree, glory might not be the word I would use today. But then it was magic. Sheer unadulterated magic and the start of a special time.

As one does, I followed the tradition that my mother had begun once I had children of my own.

Boy was that stressful.

Trying to buy a tree without anyone knowing; hide a netted tree in the garden without anyone seeing it and praying that it wouldn’t be covered in a foot of snow and drip all over the floor when it was finally brought inside; and then, horror of horrors, getting it decorated – often almost in the middle of the night – without any little detectives appearing and catching us in the act.

The second most stressful thing of the year.

Only surpassed by trying to put Christmas stockings in children’s bedrooms on Christmas Eve, when you know they are too excited to go to sleep and you are so tired after Midnight mass and preparing the turkey that you are dead on your feet and can’t go to bed until the dreaded deed is done.

And it can’t be delegated…because husbands have no idea at all about things like this and on the one occasion they were trusted with the stockings they woke the whole house up!

I loved it at Christmas when my children were little and I saw the magic of the season in their eyes. But I loved it this year too when my 16 year old daughter begged and begged to be allowed to choose and decorate the tree.

I certainly wasn’t about to say no!

And I had to smile when the children all came to me individually and very concerned to ask about stockings. They thought I might think they were too old for stockings, but they all assured me that they weren’t and that actually Christmas stockings are the very best part of Christmas as far as they are concerned.

And there was I thinking that my turkey lunch with all the trimmings was the best thing going!

Helen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.