12.21 Sasee_Ebook

Christmas in Our Hearts -
But We Need Lights Around It
by Mary McClure
It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas,” I say
hopefully each December when the temperature drops
down in the 30s. I say, “feels like Christmas,” not “looks
like Christmas,” because we Okies know that a white
Christmas is as rare as a partridge in our pear tree. It
does happen, once in a while, but I am not one of those
looking at the sky and dreaming of a White Christmas
because snow can really foul up travel plans for everyone
but Santa Claus. What I’m hoping for, starting with the
first weekend in December, is the perfect day to put
up the outside Christmas decorations. A perfect day I
define as somewhere between 33 and 99 degrees, not
raining, although a little mist would be OK, and wind
gusts no more than 25 miles per hour. I would make a
list each year. Read it to my husband: “Go to the storage
place, get 15 boxes of decorations. Cut enough cedar
boughs for the lamp post and front door. Decorate lamp
pole. Decorate front door. Put lights in tree.”
“What was that last thing?” he always asked suspiciously.
“Put lights in tree,” I’d say cheerily. “We’ll just work it in
on a pretty day.” He would look noncommittal. He knew
I was using the editorial “we” and it was he who would
have to lug the ladders around the front and climb up
and down them to string lights in the elm tree.
occurred to me that they could take over this essential
part of the Christmas festivities. As it turned out, they
didn’t find it very festive either. I insisted for several
years until, finally, one son, high atop a ladder, said
bitterly, “Mom, you just ruin Thanksgiving making us
put these lights up in the tree.”
That got my attention. What kind of a Ma Scrooge, what
kind of a Grinchette had I turned into? So, I hired it
done by people who put ads in the paper saying if there
was anything they loved to do, it was climb up in brittle
old trees and wind strings of little light bulbs around
even more brittle branches. Or, more precisely, “We do
what others won’t.”
That elm tree is more than 50 years old now, which is not
that old for a tree, but high winds and bad ice storms,
have taken their toll. This year, there aren’t enough
reachable branches to wrap lights around. I finally had
to concede that what we’re reminded of every year - that
the true spirit of Christmas lies not in decorations, in
gifts, in celebrations, but in our hearts – that’s what is
important. I just wish I could find a way to string some
lights around it.
“I’ll help,” I’d add quickly. “I’ll go get stuff and hand it
up to you.”
Eventually, I’d encourage him - well, OK, nag him
into climbing up into the elm tree to string lights. The
Christmas spirit curve took a nosedive around our
house during this stage. It was a task he hated, as he
continually reminded me in left-over Marine Corps
terminology. But I always got a great rush of Christmas
joy when I’d drive up to the house and see our elm tree
aglow with twinkling-colored lights. Since our three
sons were always here for Thanksgiving, it finally
Mary McClure,
editor of the Fort Sill Cannoneer for 18
years when it was rated among the Army’s
top three newspapers, was also the first
woman inducted into the Army’s Public
Affairs Hall of Fame. She has received the
Lawton Citizen of the Humanities Award and
the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters
Outstanding Achievement award for Special
Programming among metro radio stations.
12 :: Sasee.com :: December 2021