Last year, Christmas was something I did a lot of wondering about.. This year, I've got it pretty well figured out.
It's a very special time of the year that seems to sometimes make people do special things.
Where I live, in Wisconsin, it's cold at Christmas, and when the snow falls, it's like all kinds of little Merry Christmases greeting us. Some people don't like snow, but my mom and I do.. she's not too crazy about having to shovel it, but she still likes it. I like it because it's pretty, and it's fun to play in, even if my feet get cold. Lots of people don't like snow. They've forgotten what fun it was when they were little kids, and they've made it out to be a horrible thing now. It seems to me, if they took a little time and just watched the snow falling, they'd remember some of the magical times they had as children.
But anyway, this is my second Christmas, and I'm finding it to be just as much fun, or even more than my first one. We (mom and I) got the box down from the shelf in the garage again. That's the box where the Christmas tree lives. My family has had the same tree for fourteen years, so every year, mom figures out how much the tree is costing her to use it. This year, the tree cost is down to $2.49. Next year it will have cost even less to use it each year... It's kind of a ritual with mom to do that every year... I remember her doing it last year too! That's what I'm finding is even more fun about Christmas.. doing some of the same things again.
Like the lights for the tree... we've got white lights, multi-colored lights, and blue lights. Mom had blue ones on it last year, and she decided to put the blue ones back on this year. Only one kind of bad thing happened. Half of the lights on one string didn't work. She tried lots of things like changing the fuses, wiggling the lights in their sockets, and saying some kind of funny words to the lights. I don't know what the words meant, because I've only heard her say them a few other times when she got really upset at something. Apparently the words she said to the lights didn't work to fix them either, because there's still only half of the lights working. I think the tree looks just fine without them anyway. While mom was trying to fix the lights, I stood right by her and the lights were laying on my back and my head. I just stood there, and when mom looked down at me, she laughed and told me I looked like a little brown Christmas tree! I thought that was a pretty nice thing to look like, all decorated with shining blue lights.
Garland....Garland is a shiny fluffy rope stuff that gets wound around the tree. It is also alot of fun to walk through, get your feet tangled in, and grab and run away with while someone is telling you to "Hey... come back here!"... If I had been thinking, I would have tried some on to see how I looked in it, but I didn't. The garland really does look better on the tree.
Tree ornaments.... We have lots and lots of them, so we can only put just so many on the tree each year. Mom has some favorites that she puts on every year, and some are ones that my human brother and sister made when they were little. Some of them my grandma made, some mom made, and some are special ones that the grandma I never knew gave mom. There's one that goes way up toward the top of the tree. It's a very, very old Santa ornament that's made out of cotton. It has a hard surfaced face, but the rest of the body is cotton. Mom says it belonged to her grandma, so that makes it REALLLY old! Above that ornament goes the angel. She's really a pretty angel, made out of some kind of shells. She's not old at all though...just very pretty.
Music... It seems like the music that mom plays at Christmas time is so pretty it should be played all year long. Mom has a screensaver that plays Christmas music too, and sometimes I sit and watch the snowflakes change shape and color on the computer screen, and listen to the music.. I like The Little Drummer Boy, and I also like Frosty The Snowman, but my favorite one is Jingle Bells, because I wear my rabies tag and dog license on my collar and they sort of jingle when I walk, so, that's the song I chose for this page. It's a jazzy version that mom likes too. They're the same songs plus some new ones we listened to last year.
Mom says that that's what Christmas is about, or at least the part I'm able to understand. It's people feeling all nice and warm inside when they do the same nice things they did last year, and that it's remembering all of the Christmases past that make the Christmas present special.
And while we're talking about presents (I know, it's a different kind of present).. There are packages on top of the refrigerator, and they're driving me crazy! I can smell them, even though they're in a plastic bag, and I'm sure they're mine!! If they ARE mine, plus Santa brings MORE, Wow! I'm going to be a pretty busy dog opening and playing with all of them!!
How am I ever going to wait until Christmas?
