I'll get it right next time

I just spent about two hours crafting an essay about how I don't celebrate christmas anymore (to speak of), at the end of which I declared that I will make it a 2009 new year's resolution to celebrate christmas the way I want to. I then started listing my favorite christmas memories, and once I was done with that, I realized that that was what I should be posting here today.... my favorite christmas memories.


Andrea with Grandma Alice, circa 1984

The advent calendar and stockings my mom made
The smell of the christmas season, which I have since learned, is actually the furnace coming on for the first time that winter
Cherry and lemon breads that mom makes (lemon bread was my favorite as a kid because it has this thick layer of sugar crust on top, but as an adult, I prefer cherry bread. with nuts.),
Looking up at the falling snow at Grandma Alice's house (this may not have actually been at christmas, but I sure think of it that way)
Emily and I stealing peeks at the bounty by the christmas tree by looking in the bathroom mirror, which reflects back into the living room
Christmas tree getting, which usually included a picnic, and Dad let me carry the bow saw
Dungeoness crab feast (much better than turkey, and way better than ham)
Aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends decending on the house for christmas brunch, and then Going over to another cousins' house in the afternoon
Said other cousins' christmas tree, which was decorated with dolls (?) or balloons (?!)
Helping my mom embroider a tree skirt festooned with penguins and tree ornaments (I still think of that when I embroider anything)
My mom's collection of tree ornaments from places she's been (her favorite, I believe, being a Venitian glass Santa propelling a gondola), and carefully writing the year of travel on it
The decades-old sandwich baggies the ornamens are stored in
Mom nudging me when I spilled the beans about Santa not being real to my sister
Realizing that Santa wasn't real
Going to the sing-it-yourself Messiah with my mom and aunt
Dad testing all the "xmas lits" before hanging them
The family dog, Daisy, was allowed into the living room on christmas morning
Calling my friends to wish them merry christmasses
The decorations: the angel orchestra my mom got in East Germany, the christmas pyramids, the stack of christmas story books, googly-eyed red bird and bumble bee ornaments from Japan, and of course, the partially-melted angel candles that belonged to Grandpa Reed
Going to see the decorations at Union Square in San Francisco
My mom tearing up at reading The Polar Express
Mom's christmas music tape
Charlie Brown Christmas on TV
Carrolling around the neighborhood one year
Zoe wearing sushi pants
Making treat gifts for all the neighbor's dogs and cats
Oranges and apples in our stockings
Mom's coffee cake at christmas brunch
Dad's singing... "christmas comes but once a year, here at last, now it's past!"

yeah, I'll do it right next year....