nixtress's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bad, the good and the lovely

The newspaper today was full of news about a fan who went off while at a concert in Columbus and started shooting. Five dead, more injured. And there's a big article about a 5 yr old girl gone missing. They tucked her into bed around midnight and when they went in to wake her in the morning, she was gone. I have to say that one of my least favorite parts of the holidays is all the ick that comes with. People get depressed, people get desperate, people get drunk...none of those things lead to anything good.
Also in the paper today was my Grams. Tomorrow is her birthday and she will be 90 years old. What a monumental age to turn! She's mother to 7, grandmother to 20, great grandmother to 30 and great great grandmother to 7. And she doesn't realize that it's her birthday. As many times as we'll remind her tomorrow, she'll forget. That doesn't change the fact that she's loved, valued, still needed in so many ways. Happy early birthday to my Grams.
***
When my mother got home from work yesterday, Mike was home. He'd gotten a friend of his to bond him out. I don't know now if she'll leave him or not. She's not the strongest person in the world. Somehow I doubt she'll take this perfect opportunity.
***
The boys and I put the tree up last night. Yes, it's fake and no, I don't dislike that. While I love the smell of a live tree, I don't like the mess or the idea that I'm cutting down, for a couple weeks, a tree that took lots of years to get to that size.
I hauled it, tucked inside it's big ole box, out of the depths of the garage. There were bunches of old, hollow egg sacs from spiders but I'm happy to report I came across NO spiders in my quest to unearth the tree. I had to drag it along the front sidewalk and through the front door as it was rather heavy. And after I unloaded the different branches and tried to sort all the color-coded batches of branches, the boys and I had fun putting it all together. It's garbed in three strands of multi-colored lights, ropes of wine colored beads, glass bulbs every hue you can imagine. There are ornaments the boys have made--old AOL cd's dipped in glue and then slathered with glitter, candy canes made of beads and pipe cleaners, brittle snowflakes created from coffee filters they snipped away at with their tiny scissors. There are other ornaments-tiny wooden nutcrackers and soldiers, small stars created from twisted gilded wire, even the Cat in the Hat ornaments the boys collected from B.K. last year.
I love the way the tree looks when it's all lit up in the evenings. I remember as a kid, hiding behind the tree, lying under the back branches and looking up through to watch the glimmering lights. Maybe when the boys are grown I'll have one of those themed trees but for now, the hodge podge mix of memories is the best tradition I can teach them.
Happy Thursday.
N.

8:57 p.m. - 2004-12-09

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next