Christmas Past

I'm waxing nostalgic over Christmases past this morning.  My mother was really big on Christmas.  She would decorate to the hilt, with branches of pine and magnolia everywhere, resplendent with big, shiny glass balls and lights.  One year she had a giant box of magnolia branches shipped up from her native Georgia.  The older I get the more I realize how talented my mother was, and how much of my taste reflects hers.  My mother loved natural things, and would never, ever stoop to having an artificial Christmas tree.  It would never do, and I've followed suit all these years.  Mom loved figurines of all kinds, and we had little choirs of carolers and angels on every available table and counter space.  She adored tall tapers and candelabras.  It's a miracle we didn't burn the house down.  Mom was an RN and did shift work, but somehow she always managed to put on an EPIC Christmas.  She would bring home huge boxes of Christmas cookies from the Gaston Avenue Bakery, just down the street from Somerset Hospital, but she always baked her own pound cakes, Southern style, with pounds of butter and sugar.  Boxes of fruit cakes would come in the mail from our Georgia people - not my favorite but I think I would like them now.    Huge stockings were hung on the fireplace, and were stuffed full of presents on Christmas morning.  I feel a piercing stab of guilt over the Christmas Mom had to work all night, then came home to me throwing a tantrum because my stocking was filled with fancy underwear instead of toys.  I heard her coming in the front door, so weary and slow coming up the steps, and I met her at the door and threw the lacy garments at her.  I tried to throw the rest in the fire.  She didn't say a word and just ignored me, but I know it must have made her so sad.  What I would give to have that Christmas morning to do over again, and to have that underwear!  I will always appreciate the gigantic effort my mother exerted to make our Christmases special.  I remember desperately wanting to hold on to the day, afraid for when Christmas would be over.  Christmas here on the farm is not nearly as fancy as Mom would like it, but the natural beauty is breathtaking, even without the glitzy glass balls and tapers in sterling candelabras.  I have the most beautiful Christmas tree I've ever enjoyed, right outside my window, worthy of Rockefeller Center - stunning without a single light on it, swaying in the breeze and sheltering lots of little birds from winter storms.   I think I'll clip and few boughs for a front door wreath.