The Star

Back: Dan, Gael, Heather, Bernadette, Bill  Front: Mom holding Melodie, Dad holding Jill                                         Christmas 1972

Christmas at our house was a BIG deal.

Our mother had a real flare for that kind of thing and she loved kitch.

So we had little elves swinging from the chandeliers and picking around lamps on tables. There was real and plastic ivy on anything that would hold it. There were pine wreaths in every room. Ornaments hung in the most unlikely of places. And there was always the tree.

Covered in every ornament you can think of.

The house was bright and shiny.

Now there were jobs for each of us. Bill and Dad did the outside lights and Dad and Dan did the lights on the tree. Always.

This was, I figured, because Dan was so skinny and tall that he could reach the top of the tree without knocking it over. I remember him putting on the star. Or at least I think I do.

It is funny what your brain does with memories. All my childhood becomes a amalgam of impressions and snap shots. I somehow manage to put them all together. Not necessarily in chronological order.

Because we weren't always grown. Dan had to have been too small to do what I think I remember him doing.

But it is a good memory. So I will keep it.

Just like I have kept mom's elves, her Christmas table cloth, and, believe it or not, some of the holly.

Christmas was a big deal.