Not SKIPPING Christmas, Just SHRINKING It!
A while back one of my favorite authors (John Grisham) wrote a wonderful book, Skipping Christmas, which subsequently morphed into that delightful holiday classic movie, Christmas with the Kranks. I was a tad surprised when a friend presented this hilarious book as a Christmas present, because I had known Mr. Grisham as the writer of thrillers that I loved. But when I thought it through, I realized we sleuths and sleuth-reading followers can also have a bit of a funny bone as well—take Columbo for example.
As you may recall the premise of the book/movie was for a family to skip Christmas and take a sunny cruise instead away from the mercantile mayhem of the season. As it turned out, even more mayhem occurred with their hope of skipping the celebrated day, than if they had remained at home to start with.
I hope this does not happen to me as this year I suddenly realized I was SHRINKING Christmas. But again, further reflection helped me to make sense of the process. After all, I had just had a 73rd birthday (ouch!) and my skin was shrinking, my height seems to have shrunk a bit, and I know my brain is shrinking as I type this.
This shrinkage started several years back when my husband and I went over to the dark side and bought - - wait for it - - an artificial Christmas tree. Yes, we true blue decorating aficionados gave up the ghost of Christmas past with its mammoth live trees! We had high ceilings so our tree was always about 8 feet tall. But one year age, combined with rain and shrinking energy, sent us out to the after Christmas sales in search of the fake tree that only a turncoat would buy. I truly expected the Frazier Fir Police to visit us that year. This new tree was not as tall, went together in a snap, and was pre-lit. It was not as pretty as our former trees, but hey, we were after all on a mission to shrink the work.
A few years later I bought a 4 foot tall white tree that has now become my tree of choice. I can carry it down from upstairs all by myself, set it on a table, plug it in and voila, I have tree lift-off. Yes, it did bother me for a while, but I gave up the guilt and assuaged it with lots of hot coffee and cocoa and by watching thousands of Hallmark movies with the extra time.
So this year rolled around and in the meantime I had inherited a neighbor’s cat. This was a challenge for she is, as all cats are, most inquisitive and likes to jump on things. She particularly loves to jump up on a trunk I use for a coffee table--and at Christmas time the placement of a snow village. This snow village was not just a decoration it was a hallowed tradition that started about 39 years ago. I have never had a Christmas since when I did not plan to display this village – until this year that is. When I knew it would perhaps be destroyed by the cat, I had to come up with plan B.
But let me digress a bit and tell you just how some traditions get started. We lived in an apartment then, and our daughter who was about 6 had a love of miniature things as her father and I had had as children. This year it was nearing the stroke of about 2 a.m., and I was running out of steam as I put the finishing touches on decorating our cheery apartment for Christmas. I was left with a collection of tiny things she loved and could not figure out how to use them quickly, when the snow village flashed in my mind. I cleared the trunk, scattered around some white polyester fiber fill (fake snow to me) and filled in with the tiny items— a basket of cranberries, small candle trees, Santas, deer, bells, whatever I had. When she awoke the next morning the tradition was set in stone. I wanted you to see how some traditions start—simply because Mom is tired and about to fall out. But my daughter loved this addition to our home so much I could never think of skipping it—until now.
I was suffering Christmas angst figuring out what to do until another brainstorm struck—shrink it. And so I did. I pulled out the most precious unbreakable items, placed them on a very large decorative plate and surrounded them with fiber fill. I placed my “shrunken” snow village on the other end of the trunk that the cat likes to claim. She would just have to deal with it! So far, so good.
I just wanted my friends who visit to know why my Christmas decorations seemed to be shrinking. I have not lost my love of Christmas, I shall never be a “bah! Humbug!” kind of girl, but I have had to deal with the fact that I not the Super Woman I once fancied myself to be. I am older, I am mortal and I must give a bit on some of the activities I used to handle with ease. But perhaps even a tiny tree and a tiny village have the power to swell my heart like that of the Grinch . . .
“And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. And then – the true meaning of Christmas came through"*
. . . and I won’t be shrunken after all!
* How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss