Holiday Lights at the Pool

Greetings!
First, I bring glad tidings of great joy - Big Brother and Didi recently gave birth to a healthy baby boy! Little Pumpkin weighed in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces, and measured 21 and a half inches. We are tickled pink to be grandparents, and look forward to watching him grow. Congratulations to the happy little family!
Well, Christmas is upon us, and in true Stress Pool style, we've decorated in the usual fashion. DH brought the tree up from the garage/attic (we don't have an attic, and since the cars are too tall for the garage - well, there you go!), which sat in the living room for a week and a few days. Then, last week we put the tree together. It's a nice, new one from Balsam Hill - we got it on sale this past summer at 50% off. Pre-lit, it made a huge difference in the amount of time setting it up (and a lot less cursing!) than in years past! So, if you drove past the house, you'd see it in the window. Not decorated, but at least it was put together! Then, one holly topiary made it up. The other goes in the entry way - along with a garland with the Christmas Mice. (They are gold in color, and illustrate "The Night Before Christmas". Then, a few other things made their way in. We still haven't found the tree skirt or stockings, but there is time. But, with only a week before Christmas, I decided it was time to at least get ornaments on the tree.
After I slept through the evening news and most of Jeopardy!, I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the box of ornaments we brought up yesterday. We decided on the Santas. Yes, there are the 'meaningful' ornaments - the ones with the kids names, and some they made, and some that were given as gifts, and they're wonderful memories. But Christmas is still hard, and it can be a bit much at times. Somewhere along the line I lost the last 10 years. It isn't that I don't like Christmas, I do - but there is still a gaping hole in my heart that will probably never fill in. It is mostly covered over with a filmy layer of silk, and I've learned to put a smile on my face - even the occasional laugh. But Christmas music often makes me cry...enough maudlin. Down to business. (Wipe the eyes, continue with life.)
The box is marked 'Santas' in DH's handwriting. At one point I must have added  'Angels', 'Eskimos', 'Penguins', and 'Wendel August Forge' ornaments. The new tree is a little smaller than the old one, so I had to be choosy. There were the ceramic angels DH made in ceramics class - one dozen, cream and gold. I always chuckle getting them out of the box, because they're hollow at the bottom, and sometimes the packing peanuts get stuck inside. Yeah, I know it's a bit juvenile, but you gotta get the laughs where you can! There is a clear, acrylic angel with Eggbert's name, given to us by the funeral home the year he died. There is a Befana (which DH said was hard to come by - they were popular that year!) Santa Lucia, and many other gift-givers from around the world, including a few of Saint Nicholas. There is a Miss Piggy angel given to me by my Aunt Peg somewhere around 1980, and an angel my friend, Sister Donna, brought from Peru. Angels made from shells. There is even a buck-naked elf made out of old nylon stockings, given to me by a student my first year of teaching (back in the old days, when we had to wash the floors and stoke the fire in the stove!)  Eskimos are the Hallmark 'Frosty Friends' series - we missed a few years, but there are still a lot of them, as well as the penguins, which I believe were mostly bought for Moink. I don't remember where all the Santas came from, part of the lost years, but we've picked some up on vacations to Virginia, and possibly when we went to Tennessee. All in all, a lot of nice collection of ornaments.
My favorite one, though, is the kneeling Santa. It's small, and shows Santa kneeling before the Christ child in the manger, hat off, humbled, for without Jesus, there would be no Santa, and that is a plain and simple fact. I seem to recall that Big Brother and Didi aren't going to 'do the Santa thing' with their kids. I can't wait until Little Pumpkin is older, because I hope his parents don't mind him becoming a Santa for others - something I so enjoy doing! Helping others in need is such a necessary thing, and we have so much, we are so fortunate - we need to share that with others.
So, I sit and sip a bit of pumpkin spice Bailey's, look at the lights on the tree, and remember Christmases past. Times when children decorated as high as they could reach, clamoring over who would put up which ornament. Remembering times when at last, the house was quiet, and DH and I could share a moment in the silence, admiring the gleaming lights in the comfort of each other's company. I wonder what your favorite ornament is, and why it holds a special meaning in your heart?

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of you and yours a Happy Christmas. My wish is for you to enjoy the magic of this joyous season. Don't stress (easy for me to say, right?!) because there's no reason to - if it gets done, it gets done. If the tree was still in the box in the middle of the living room, I might have been tempted to string lights around it and call it a day! Just enjoy the time you have with each other - after all, time is short. Children grow up too fast. People fade from our lives, either because they move on to other things, or just plain move on.
And, please come back to visit at the pool, where the water is usually warm, and where friends are always welcome. Merry Christmas!