I can’t believe Christmas is just a week away. No one is coming for Christmas this year, but my sister did come for a holiday visit. She flew into Vegas, and my husband was a real sport, and picked her up—and then ten days later (this morning), he took her back to Vegas to fly home. Unfortunately, she missed her connecting flight, and is stuck in the airport for a couple of hours. But she is using that time to read my new book, The Ghost and the Christmas Spirit, so it should keep her occupied.

My sister Lynn is my only sibling, and we’re pretty close. So it was great having her here for a holiday visit—especially for our mother. We did sister stuff, like baked a favorite cookie recipe of our paternal grandmother’s, went out to lunch, did some Christmas shopping, sipped brandy and eggnog, and talked…and talked. She also helped me at the Shopping Extravaganza, where I had a book table set up. And she knows a few people in Havasu–an old high school friend from Covina, and some relatives of her husband, so we did a little visiting.

I wish we could have taken Lynn out in the boat, but unfortunately we’ve been experiencing a cold Havasu December. Some years we can dine outside by the pool during December—other years we need warm jackets and a toasty fire when outside.

The photo is of my sister and me—I am the one on the left. It was taken 54 years ago—yikes! That was before our family moved to Havasu. Back in those days we lived in Covina, California. Back then, our parents always had this enormous flocked tree in the living room—which Mom carefully decorated in turquoise and gold glass ornaments. My sister and I preferred old fashioned trees, so we usually shared a little tree, which we decorated. Sometimes it was in my bedroom, sometimes in Lynn’s. That year it was in Lynn’s room.

This year we just have a little tree with lights on our stereo cabinet—away from the pups. But next year, next year we will have a full-sized Christmas tree again.

When I was a little girl I remember being horrified when I heard my grandma Hilda was not putting up a regular Christmas tree one year.  Everyone, I believed, needed a festively decorated tree up for Christmas. Grandma explained it was simply too much work. I wanted to put up a tree for her.

This year it will be the third year we haven’t had a regular Christmas tree in our home—just the one in the photo, which really doesn’t count. It sits in the corner on a table, while my extensive ornament collection remains boxed in my closet.  The reason for no tree this year—the puppies and the fact, it will just be hubby and Mom for Christmas.

They aren’t exactly puppies anymore—last year Danny was not quite six months at Christmas, and Lily was about four months old. But hubby thinks they are probably too rambunctious for a tree, especially for Lily with her resource guarding issue we’re trying to deal with. I cringe to think what she would do if she snagged an ornament hook.

This morning I was drinking my coffee and thinking of our past Christmas trees. That first year out of three we didn’t have a tree was back in 2008—the year Lady came into our home. She wasn’t even as old as Lily on that first Christmas. It was also the first year that at least one of our kids didn’t come home for Christmas. Both our son and daughter married in 2008.

The second time without a tree was last year, and this will be the third year. As I sipped my coffee this morning and thought of those treeless years, my mind wandered back to Don’s and my first Christmas as a married couple, living in our first apartment, and our first dog, Pepper, who we rescued. Literally rescued—she was a pup wandering confused and hungry on the street and no one claimed her. She was with us 18 years.

That first Christmas together, Don and I never considered not having a tree, despite the fact we left Pepper alone in our apartment for hours while we went to work. What were we thinking? But, we were young.

As it turned out, Pepper never seemed to bother a single ornament—or the tree—or so, we thought.

In our early years together, our Christmas trees would include a strand with popcorn and fresh cranberries. The string would be a short row of popcorn, one cranberry, more popcorn, one cranberry, and so on.

One evening, while sipping eggnog or some other Christmas beverage, I was sitting on the sofa in our small apartment admiring our lovely tree. Back in those days, we didn’t have artificial trees—they were real pine trees.  I looked admiringly at the tree when something peculiar caught my attention.

That long strand of popcorn and cranberry, wrapped festively around our little tree was sorely missing one thing—popcorn.  It was simply: several inches of string, a cranberry, several inches of string, a cranberry, and so on.

Our little Pepper had meticulously nibbled off every bit of popcorn from the string—without pulling down the tree or even the string from the branches. 

Such a clever dog. That is her in the photo.