I guess it's this time of year when I miss him most. When I'm putting the lights on the tree, I remember how he would pull the string of big-bulbed, multi-coloured lights, and stretch it out the length of the basement, untangling the knots. Then he would plug it in to see if it worked. If it didn't (which was more often than not), he painstakingly checked each bulb, and replaced any that were burned out. Once all the bulbs were lit, he would carefully wrap the string around the tree, then I would decorate it with ornaments and silver tinsel.

I remember the smell of those real-live Christmas trees we used to have. Mmm! So wonderful! We would go out and cut it down ourselves. I'm sure we had to have a permit, but I don't remember that part. I just remember getting all bundled up and heading up to the mountains, then hiking into the woods (well, mom and dad hiked, I was pulled along behind in one of those snow saucer things) in search of the perfect Christmas tree. Once we found one, Dad would chop it down, and we'd haul it back, toss it in the back of the pickup truck and take it home. Then we'd sit in front of the fireplace to thaw out, and drink hot cocoa before putting the tree up in the basement.

Now I just have a little four foot artificial tree. It's nice, but it's really not the same. Even with Christmas tree scented candles, it can't match the wonderful, unique real pine trees we went and chopped down ourselves. We still have a lot of the same ornaments as we did back then - there's a posable pink angel who's lost some of her pink hair, a silver metal angel who just this year got a new coat of sparkly glitter, and an eight inch Santa who's really too heavy to put on a branch, but instead has to sort-of lean against the tree. I remember I was quite horrified to find that when I removed his black boots, he had no feet! Aaahhh! (It still kinda creeps me out.)

My dad always loved everything about Christmas. He never put lights up around the house (though I'm sure if he was still with us, he would be; or rather, I'd be, since he'd be in no shape to do it himself), but he would put them up around the inside of the windows facing the street, so the house still looked festive when you drove by. He was one of those dads who always worried there weren't enough presents under the tree; one of those dads running to the store at 11:55pm to buy more. Then he'd stay up till three putting together the "some assembly required" toys, and stuffing my stocking to overflowing.

The other night mom and I were taking about dad, and she said, "It's hard to believe he'd be seventy!" I didn't believe her. My dad? Seventy years old? No freakin' way! But, it's true; if my dad had lived, he'd be 70 this year. I can't imaging him at 70; can't even form a composite drawing in my head. He'll always be 45 to me. And he'll always be the reason that even if I sometimes don't like a lot of stuff about Christmas, I'll always try to make it special and fun.

Cheers!

for (ho) what (ho) it's (ho) worth | Hez