from now on maybe

Have yourself a merry little Christmas;

let your heart be light.

From now on, our troubles

will be out of sight.

 

I had a plan.  Christmas would look and feel different this year if I was to get through it, this first Christmas without them. 

It started with the lights. 

You see, I'm a tiny-white-lights gal.  Always have been, always will be.  I swoon over cafe trees whose trunks have been wrapped round and round and round with twinkling strands, and I will endure the heat to dine among them on patios in the summer. 

Colored lights would be a change I thought so I took the tiny-white-light strands off each tabletop tree we place around the house and I draped them with strings of red, green, gold, purple and blue.  Different!

My plan was for them to be simply colorful; I was not up for hanging ornaments this year.

I tried hard to like the trees before admitting they looked as pathetically sad as I felt, so I hung yards of silver-bead garland on the unadorned branches.  Better!  Pretty! 

Festive!

That's where the plan fell apart. 

There was no Christmas I would describe as festive as the one my sister and I shared with our mother on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.  Strings of colored lights were strung across the water and you could not look at their shimmering reflection and be anything other than merry.

One night we ate outside at Boudro's Texas Bistro so we could enjoy the show of lights.  It was freezing cold but we didn't care; we had on coats, hats and gloves.  Waiters pulled heaters up to our table and placed heavy wool blankets on our laps.  Fun!

Many Christmases lit-up by tiny-white-lights have come and gone since then and my heart is sad.  I miss them terribly.

But surprisingly, almost miraculously, as I putter through the house, the lights on our trees, the so colorful and festive lights have dared me to be anything but merry.

Through the years, we all will be together

if the fates allow.

Hang a shinging star upon the highest bough

and have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Mockingbird Station, Dallas
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas:
Music by Hugh Martin, Lyrics by Ralph Blane