Merry Christmas

Tonight (Christmas Eve) I watched as the deputies I supervise continued, as the professionals they are, to do their jobs with no complaint, not a sound, upbeat, helping each other out.  I dropped by their various work sites and sent some of them home early, so they could be with their families.  My priority was to send home, as early as I could afford, those deputies with young children at home.

Because, absent the deep religious aspect, Christmas is for kids.

I can remember, being 6 or 7 or so, how I would help Mom put up the Christmas tree.  At the time, most everyone had live Christmas trees.  You would go to the local lot and select your favorite.  If you were rich or strange you got a flocked tree.  My best friend, Randy, his family always got a flocked tree.  It was covered with some kind of unknown white material intended, I could only guess, to mimic snow.  His family was always more avant-garde.

I was mystified by the Christmas tree.  It was huge, green, fresh, had a wonderful pine smell like no other time of the year.  We would hang lights, the kind with the huge, hot bulbs, and then drape the branches and needles with tinsel.  The best tinsel was the kind you could mold into a big ball when the tree came down; it was lead.  The light, fluffy tinsel was cheap.  I hated it.

I would sit, at night, just before Christmas, in the den, in the dark, watching the lights.  They didn't flicker or blink, they just captivated.  I would wonder: which are my presents?  What is it?  I would covertly try to pick up a present and shake it, gauge its weight.

Christmas was wonderful.  It was stellar.  

It was for kids.

Ah, memories.

So, so many years ago.

BZ