DECEMBER 24, TUESDAY

DECEMBER 24, TUESDAY

CHRISTMAS

My family has always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve because Kathe, my wife, was German and she was the one who made Christmas magical in the same way her German mother had made Christmas magical for her.  In the early years of our marriage we lit real candles on the Christmas tree and hung apples in the tree with straw stars as her mother had done.  But with wooden American houses this was began to seem too risky and we shifted to strings of white electric Christmas lights.

Tuesday we celebrated Christmas at the home of my son Tom and his wife Kathy.  Christmas is the time when families gather and both of their children, Hannah and Caroline were home from their studies.  

Because we are all adults now and buy whatever we really want with no one quite sure what the right present for everyone is, we decided that each of us would give one special present to one other randomly chosen person.  Since I itch from head to toe in the dry heat of winter central heating, I really wanted a humidifier as my gift.  Todd knew this and ordered me one.  But it didn’t arrive in time, so as a replacement until it gets here he gave me a package off organic celery, my least favorite food.  Tom gave all of us inexpensive, often whimsical, thrift store gifts.