Creating New Memories

Not ours. Lakewood Country Club's.

As many of you are aware, Cute and I moved in together about a year ago just before Christmas. Our lives together in our new place began with the sheer and utter chaos that moving and combining two old(er) lives involves.  There was really no Christmas at home, just (unfun) boxes and weariness.

So we feel like this is our first Christmas together in our own place. Cute determinedly and repeatedly made trips to the storage unit, hauling up box after box of our Christmas garland, Santas, set-arounds, ornaments. What fun we thought as we figured out where two lifetimes of Christmas could go in our new space.  I feel fortunate that Cute really enjoys Christmas and doesn’t complain about the manual labor involved. I am sure Cute feels lucky that I am such a good supervisor.

Combining Christmas traditions and trees and doodads has turned out to be an interesting exercise in compromise and creativity.  An initial goal was to reduce the quantity and thus make life easier in future years.  That thought disappeared after the first box.

There have also been some interesting questions to answer. Like did we really give away approximately 18 strings of assorted Christmas lights?  How can we have four Christmas trees of various sizes but where have all the tree skirts gone?  Must we resolve what longtime ornaments are tacky or just sweetly reminiscent of other times in our lives? Should we, together, see the Plaza lights come on for the first time this Thanksgiving? 

You’ll be happy to know that since we are grown-ups, sometimes, we managed a peaceful if perhaps too arduous pre-Christmas experience.  We listened to each other‘s memories about the holidays and decided that clearly it is time to make some of our own. We had already started that by creating OUR collection to add to what we each previously had - too many in the first place. But in the last four years, we've managed to commemorate some of the places you've read about. That will no doubt inevitably continue .

(From the left: One old one, where my obsession began: Chicago, then Key West, Bratslavia, Crown Center, Portugal, the passport from somewhere, Key West, Belize, Captiva, Maui, Colorado, Budapest,

and our current home on the Plaza, )

So in the plans: A Christmas pop-up is on the agenda as are The Missouri Rep’s Christmas Carol, dinners with now mutual friends, driving by outdoor light displays and visiting gaily decorated hotel lobbies. (More on those later.) We’re also figuring out where our help is most needed  this season by volunteering. 

Cute has already sat through my favorite Christmas movie tradition on this Thanksgiving weekend which is Miracle on 34th Street, the good version with Maureen O’Hara and Natalie Wood, made in 1946. And I watched his, inexplicably The Muppet Chrismas Carol.

Christmas is in 23 days and the decorating is done. We feel fortunate: now it’s time to enjoy the season, our new home; each other, and our friends.  We hope you do the same.

Ours. Now. (Gifted from the 50's. Who could give this up?)