If you don’t want to hear stories about Christmas, come back in a month or so. Fair warning, the yuletide season is likely to be mentioned a little bit over the next wee while.

This time of year, back home, when we were raising our kids, I would have been spending a lot of my time at Christmas craft fairs with my girlfriends. Over the years, a lot of really nice decorations were added to my collection. I had a big house with lots of nooks and crannies to tuck a Santa or two. It was fun and I enjoyed everything about it.

That said, nothing was ever put on display until December. The tree itself, traditionally, went up the weekend before Christmas day. When E became ill in 1999, I bought an artificial tree. I was not going to deal with the buying and transportation of a real tree with three young kids. Not going to happen. Everything in our lives had to be simplified.

Once we had a fake tree, I was able to decorate earlier than ever before, but still, never before December first. I enjoy the season. Especially the pretty lighting. I like to do my baking with the music on and the lights up. But once the 25th is over, I cannot wait to take it all down and tidy up.

Since living here, we have given most of the decorations to our kids. There is just no room in this little house to store them or display them. Three years ago I was in Ladner in December and saw a Christmas tree made out of twigs hanging on the wall of my favourite gift store, Rembrandts Cottage. I really liked it as an option for a very tiny living room. I took a picture of it and saved it on my phone. Since then, I have seen the idea well explored on Pinterest, and it is no longer anything original. But still, we wanted to try it this year, with Arbutus tree branches.

Once E had his heart transplant in 1999, I gave out heart ornaments to our friends at Christmas. Keeping one each year for ourselves, we accumulated a nice selection of heart shaped decorations. They are really all that we have left of my craft fair days. Our take on the elf on the shelf has E’s stuffed Tinman sitting on this years tree.

I am pleased to report that E is feeling more like himself. Still not presentable to the public, but he is a much happier camper today, so he and Shanty got

back to work.