Christmastime at Mom’s

I know it’s after Christmas now, but I just have to pay tribute to my mom’s Christmas spirit. Even at 81 years old, she can still create Christmas magic like nobody else.

At Christmastime (and, really, all the time) there’s a wonderful feeling at Mom’s house of creative bounty. The cozy house seems like Santa’s workshop, like a magical factory churning out treats, toys, ornaments, and other seasonal delights. This year, for much of December, the dining room table was covered with Christmas gifts that Mom was making for my sister Bunny’s second-grade students. Mountains of homemade candy and cookies and cute little prizes (sparkly pencils, cupcake-shaped erasers, etc. ) surrounded a centerpiece of luscious peppermint-striped amaryllis. Mom had even made each child their own red velvet stocking with their name spelled out in silver glitter.

Every year Mom’s living room is bursting with Christmas. The room will be crowded with presents (so many that you can barely squeeze in the door!), and there are always several Christmas trees and a Christmas village. Christmas candles glow and flicker, and every chair is taken up by a jolly extended family of puffy snowman dolls, the gents wearing vests and the ladies wearing shawls.

“There’s so much to see in here,” I always say when I stand in her living room. “It’s just awesome. There are so many details.”

Rob calls it “a Christmas explosion.”

Mom’s main Christmas tree is always loaded with candy-colored lights, gold garland, and the funniest, cutest, prettiest ornaments, most of them handmade. Lace angels hover here and there, and a little felt mouse sleeps in a walnut-shell cradle.

Big glittery silk flowers bloom all over the tree, from top to bottom–poinsettias, lilies, roses, sunflowers, and more.

“I like to use the flowers to fill in the holes,” Mom will chuckle.

Our presents are all wrapped in Mom’s special way. Mom is the world’s best present-wrapper! The wrapping is sparkly and lush, over the top, with lavish bows–and little extra presents attached to the bows for even more bling. (Mom calls the little extra presents “toppers.”)

Mom’s Christmas decorating is so exuberant, so super-duper, that it makes my own decorating seem, by contrast, cautious, even stingy. Mom’s decorating is a perfect reflection of her heart. There’s so much joy and love apparent in it, such generosity and freedom, lack of concern for rules, such buoyancy, such a sense of fun. Mom has Easter chicks and bunnies mixed in with the Christmas stuff. One bunny even holds a tray with a Christmas-tree-shaped candle on it. Mom doesn’t care. She never excludes. She welcomes everybody to participate in her Christmas celebration, even the Easter Bunny.

Mom doesn’t put lights outside, but her yard always seems decorated for Christmas because it’s so full of flowers and fruits. Oh, the bounty! You should see it. Every nook and cranny is festooned with blossoms and fallen petals, and lemons, grapefruit, and satsumas hang from the citrus trees like shining Christmas balls.

If you ever visit Mom’s house, you will go home with a present–not just at Christmastime but any time, even in July, even in January. A few weeks ago, I went over there on a random Sunday and she said, “Since you have so many fireplaces, I was wondering if you might like some more Christmas stockings!”

(For years Mom has been making special embellished stockings covered with sequins and beads and fancy stitching, each one an elaborate project that takes weeks to finish.)

“Sure,” I said. “If you’re sure you don’t want them.”

“I don’t,” Mom insisted. “They’re just sittin’ here!”

Then she led me into her bedroom and opened a storage bin filled to the brim with fancy sequined, beaded stockings—big stacks of them. I mean, there had to be 50 or more. I chose eight more stockings, promising to take very good care of them.

“I can’t believe you made all of these!” I said.

“Well,” Mom laughed, “I have to have something to do while I’m watching Perry Mason in the morning!”