Where are the Candles?

This is not new to me, I have been decorating this house since 1989. I have photographed it every year and for the most part kept things pretty much the same. I have of course added some new items from time to time and retired others as needed. I am not one of those great mums who hung onto every ornament my children made, let’s be honest here, there are five of them and between sporadic periods of religiosity where they created little Marys and Josephs, boy scouts, girl scouts and school, where I understand all things Christmas have been replaced by a more pagan and nebulous albeit in-offensive Winter Holiday now, they must have created a hundred or more “ornaments.” From paper plates, popsicle sticks, glue and glitter. And felt, remember felt? Each brought home with a grin, a prideful question mark on each little blighter’s face asking if it could take pride of place on the tree. Yes, of course it could….for about 20 minutes. Then frankly I got sick of celebrating around a tree that was famous for its smell of old glue and animal bits found on nature walks and later turned into treasures. I began to long for brightly coloured ornaments that shone and sparkled but were not made from snot and  macaroni. I wanted a designer tree, like the ones in magazines. I wanted to have a Martha flippin’ Stewart tree. As a mother of five, sometimes things just hit you that way. Bang crash…

“This is why we can’t have anything nice!”

And so it began, the captain suggested that I have a second tree and purchase spiffy ornaments of my choice so that the super-glued, kid friendly monstrosity could be left for the children to continue to express their creativity. That was really all it took for me to begin the journey that has ended in there being no less than seven Christmas trees in our home. I can’t even lie and say I didn’t notice, it was not stealth but rather grim determination that got us here. I was on a mission once begun, to have themed trees in each room and the madness continues. As people in your life realize that you have a small obsession with anything they fall loyally into one of two categories. They begin to purchase you something for the collection for every birthday or other gift worthy occasion or they try to put a stop to it. In my case the former has taken on a life of its own. From one or two snowmen perched cheerily atop a shelf in the family room we now own what has been christened the boyfriends of Christmas past shelf, containing about twenty snow men in every shape and size, each one gifted over time upon recommendation from one of our four daughters. The Santa that made its way to a book case now has at least thirty cousins in resin, pottery, wood and various other mediums, again all gifted over time to evolve into a Santa grave yard of epic proportions. There are Santas tumbling out of drawers and flying in a tin airplane (yes another theme; aviation of course!) I have tiny little Santas that sit jauntily beside tiny Christmas trees and Santas from foreign lands collected lovingly from Boscov’s every year. There are Santa pilots and Santa military men each gifted in honor of the two aviators in our family.

I will not bore you with the details of the contents of the many, many plastic bins in the Christmas closet, the basement and the laundry room. Don’t judge, where’s yours? Suffice it to say it takes a great deal of planning to execute the appearance of a casual Smith Christmas with a few nice things artfully placed, it takes a gargantuan effort of at least three days to haul it to each room and display it all just so. It is then photographed and shown to the captain to whom the task will fall should I meet with an untimely demise, to re-create it for the children. His constant and never failing response to this is to inform me that he will set fire to all of it if I go first. How many of those arguments have you had!! 

Today, some four days after Thanksgiving I thought it would be nice to just make a start and place the candles in the windows. You know, the electric kind, that have timers on them and make your home look warm and inviting in the winter snow. We built this house with those in mind, there is a double outlet under every single window in our home, I am so proud of that. I must admit it was the captain’s idea however, not mine. Credit where it’s due. But I love that I don’t need extension cords and can have the wires neatly tied up in a small bundle just under the sill. Just the way Martha would have done it if she weren’t such a bitch and therefore not married to someone great like the captain! All our candles plug into the lower of the two outlets and can all be turned on at once with the flip of a light switch as one enters or leaves the room. Brilliant. I have a system, usually, when putting all the detritus of the holidays away, but last year we had extra dogs as guests, as well as people, and something must have snapped, I must have had a few too many eggs of the nog, I don’t really know but when I began the search for these window candles they were completely lost to me. I spent more than three hours rifling through bins and tubs, each labeled in indelible marker with helpful sentences that say things like “Kitchen window sill, east 2009” or “Bay window, 2010, needs fresh pine cones.” Where did I put the candles? Why did I not place them all in one box clearly labeled? Now, a bourbon and ginger ale later I sit amidst the chaos I have created in the fruitless search, still no candles. But I am struck by the stories behind all the “mess” The memories of these little gifts given over three decades of a great marriage and a wonderful family. I am bliss-filled and melancholy all at once, another holiday will come and go, gifts will be given, new memories will be made and through it all the sameness and the newness will be a constant. Oh look at that… here’s the Easter bunny I couldn’t find this spring, maybe I’ll look there for the candles!