It is ten more days until Christmas and the Christmas season
is truly in the swing. Carols are blazing from the radio. Shops are full of festive cheer. The Christmas
Radio Times is out giving details of the UK Christmas programming . The buying
of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times has become a huge tradition in the
Styles household. My husband always says that some year he will get to read it
without the cover being ripped. Some things about Christmas remain the same. And
it is easy to get jaded.
For me though this
time of year is full of memory. Remembering the good times. Being thankful that
the bad times have passed or sometimes just thankful I survived to breathe
again. It is one of the reasons I love this season because I do get a chance
visit old memories and reconnect with old friends.
Yesterday my daughter came home from university and we
decorated the tree. We always get a real tree because I love the scent. But the designer trees with this season
colours are not for me. Instead each
year, I unpack my ornaments and put them up. I always change my lights every
three years because a friend lost her entire front room to a blaze when she had
a faulty light string.
Over the years I have amassed a load of ornaments. Each has
a story to tell. There are the wooden ornaments my sister and I painted when
she was six and I was twelve. The crewel work Mary and baby Jesus I did when I
was 17 and taking the train to school.
The hummingbird ornament which once had a lot of feathers and was truly
glorious but has long been the target of cat attack and keeps being found in
odd places. There are a few remaining silver and gold spray painted from
walnuts from when the children were little and I decided to have a crafty
Christmas. The late night party duck from my sister in honour of various ducks
that refused to go bed and drove me insane. I could go on and on. It takes awhile to put
up the tree because each memory needs to be unpacked and unwrapped.
When we were done, my daughter asked if I knew that she
would be taking her ornaments when she sets up her house because she wants a tree just like this. I
said I knew but didn’t mind. I take it as a honour that she wants to have the
sort of tree I have – one made of memories.
If you want to see more Christmas trees from various authors. Cheryl St John is having a Christmas tree tour on her blog. There is even the Harlequin Mills and Boon editor's tree there.
Wishing you a wonderful festive season full of memories
which will light your life for many years to come.
Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance in a wide variety of time periods for Harlequin Historical. Her latest Hattie WIlkinson Meets Her Match was publish in November and her nex An Idel Husband? will be published in April 13. You can learn more on her website www.michellestyles.co.uk
4 comments:
Lovely Christmas Tree :)
Our tree ornaments are a variety of
styles: craftiness from over the
years, the children's ornaments made
in school, ornaments obtained by us
over the years, and those given to us
by my MIL when she closed down her
home after FIL passed away. MEMORIES!
Pat C.
Michelle ~ I think memory trees are the best kind. Thanks for the link to Cheryl St John's blog.
Hi Michelle!
Whenever I think of Christmas my fondest memories are going "hunting" for a Christmas tree with my Dad and two older sisters! Since I was the youngest I can still remember the year that I found what I thought was the perfect tree but my sisters said it wasn't "good enough".
My Dad came to the rescue and the tree that we took home that year was the one I picked! A Charlie Brown tree that only needed a good home to go to and some tinsel and bows with a star on top to make it the most beautiful tree we ever had - at least in my eyes!
To this day whenever we go looking for a tree I still love the smallest, ugliest tree the best because I want it also to be the star of the show on Chirstmas Eve just waiting for the star on top for it's crowing glory!
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