Christmas Joy, Late Cards, Lost And Found

by Kevin Burton

   You won’t find any turkey or dressing below, but I do have here a sampling of Christmas leftovers.

   These are the fragments you can stitch together for a true accounting of the most wonderful time of the year, Burton style. Here is what it looked like:

   It isn’t really Christmas season until I have broken at least one Christmas ornament. But somehow I have not broken one this year.  That is a major upset, but don’t you worry. We leave our tree up until halftime of the Super Bowl so I still have time…..  

   I am told there is a big holly tree next to the church where I work.  I have no idea which one it is.  I wouldn’t know a holly tree if it waved it branches and smacked me across the face.  Holly is used as an herbal medicine as well as a decoration, according to http://www.drugs.com.

  Also, do we measure anything else in boughs?  What is a bough? Should I hope for boughs of fantasy football points?  Can I double over in boughs of laughter?

   Nope. Looks like a bough is a branch of a tree. So it would have to be boughs of lemons or something. Ever hear of that?…..

   Most of the known world is into black Friday. I have a milder interest in the after-Christmas sales. Specifically boxed Christmas cards are what I am looking for.  I will need to stock up so I can have plenty of cards to send late next year.

   Does anybody sell New Year’s cards?

   We also said we were going to re-start the tradition of buying one new Christmas ornament each year.  We didn’t get around to it before Christmas though. We can maybe fix that by hitting a sale or two today….. 

   I had nine of those To-From stickers for Christmas gifts on the dining room table before Christmas but when I went to get them Christmas morning they were not there.  I meant to move them, but did I?  Or, did Jeannette move them when she set the table? 

   If I moved them they would be in my office somewhere and Heaven help me to find anything in that disaster zone real quick quick. We were on our way to my mom’s and I needed to put a label on one of her gifts. If Jeannette moved the stickers, the logical place for her to put them would have been a long flat box where we have wrapping paper labels, bows and such.  So I tore into that.

   Well I couldn’t find the stickers but I found some other labels. Didn’t want those though. I was determined to find the first ones. 

   Ten minutes later I had succeeded in making a mini mess in front of the Christmas tree but not in finding the stickers. I gave up the quest, but then realized I couldn’t find the second set of labels I had found. 

   That made me laugh out loud. Got to love Christmas.

   The next ridiculous thing I did was ask Jeannette if she had seen the first stickers. She had and she found them for me…..

   When I knew we were getting a new cat (turns out we got two, see “The Burtons Make Room For Two,” Dec. 22) I specifically put several ornaments on the lowest branches just to test their metal.  You know those cats haven’t touched a thing.  Are these Stepford cats?…..

   My stepson and his family drove up from Oklahoma Christmas Eve to open presents and have snacks.  The kids squealed with high-decibel enthusiasm over their new treasures and everybody met the new cats.

   There are four places (that I know of) where we keep scotch tape in our house/garage.  We might have two or three roles in each place.  Don’t you know Jeannette wiped out the entire household stash of tape wrapping Christmas gifts, mostly for the kids. It was breathtaking and beautiful.

   I tell Jeannette she is a worrier, first-string all-conference. That is true. But she is also a giver.  She has such a good heart but somehow she ended up with an old Grinch like me.  

   So you pray for Jeannette when you have a spare moment. Merry after-Christmas. It truly is a wonderful life.