Ghosts of Christmas' past

This picture of our Christmas tree was taken in our living room at 2624 Scenic Hwy during the Christmas of 1986. The house had a beautiful bay window that overlooked Scenic.  We usually trimmed large trees, but they seemed even larger when peering in from outside.  The bay windows seemed to magnify the size of our Christmas trees.

Ours was a big family to begin with.  We quickly gathered even more family as siblings married and started begetting more loved ones.  Our family is still busy getting bigger.  I guess we will soon have to declare ourselves a nation.  I remember when we were only eight.

I can remember pretty far back - all the children lined up down the hallway behind dad's wheelchair - as if he himself were the great Polar Express.  We'd line up from oldest to youngest and push forward into the living room where Santa had visited.  It was always so nice of him to spread out the gifts around in specific areas of the room where the each child knew was his or her spot. Christmas sure is a busy time for Santa, odd that he would take all the time to spend arranging where each gift should go in a room.  I guess that magic dust he'd been snorting not only put him in an altered state of time,space, & dimension - but also made him very OCD.

Surely with all the gifts delivered via sled, that it must've taken poor old Santa several trips back and forth from the North Pole.  Then again, maybe he hitched a trailer onto a sled.  Do you think it possible to pull a trailer along with a flying sled?  It just pushes my imagination as to how it could happened.  Chalk it up to Christmas magic I suppose.

Christmas' come and go.  Each one a little different than the one before.  It's not very practical to believe that every year can be handled the same - something will change.  Today we all have to negotiate how our families can find time and a way to get together under a single roof.  No plan is perfect for all.  Even though our little nation grows, we are still family, still the same people gathering for a time to reconnect and celebrate the birth of our Lord.