Wacky Tacky Christmas

 I don't have magazine Christmas decor. It's not that I don't want it.  When I go to my dear friends' places, the ones they remodelled to be all white and airy and full of marble and interesting area rugs and pale leather furniture, I wonder. When the holiday season arrives, I wonder how they can add to their open spaces anything that might disturb the ambiance of their new shiny homes. But their places look even nicer with the holiday decor all matching and such.  Now, my place, being small and cramped with furniture that is so comfortable  I can't part with it, not to speak of the white grand piano in the corner just in case someone wants to play on it, if there are any people left who play. And while I love their houses, I am happy with my wacky tacky Christmas decor. And still they come over and they love it, too. I am a keeper, not a hoarder. I have a couple of carboard boxes that manage to hold everything that means Christmas to me. I know that being the Canadian I am, I respect all other cultures with their celebrations, too, that make our country the "mosaic" that it is. My holiday now is called Christmas and I love it just as they do their special days, because we have memories connected with our celebrations, ones that are close to our hearts and pasts. In my house, everywhere you will see wreaths and little figures and decorations that don't quite blend, but somehow do, and music out of the speakers that few people recognise any more. The singers peal away as I put out the tiny clay figures of the creche, the old tree decorations when we had real trees that didn't come from the corner market or inside a plastic wrap. The balls were made of glassy stuff that broke when the family cat batted them or little ones' fingers dropped them and they cried. And others that we made at school: a Santa that has funny eyes, angels whose halos have bent and broken ones that aren't ashamed of their missing bits. As I put them out lovingly on the mantel and edges of other places I find, they bring back the sounds of childhood voices and laughter, when presents were wrapped maybe with last year's paper left over, and  hand made cards with printed verses not quite poetry but with heart. Reading the words written in early printing by those now old or gone, have precious meaning that something slick from a designer store, cannot replace no matter how fashionable. I look around when it's all done and I can almost hear the door opening and voices coming in stomping snow off feet. They are the people once here and once needed and loved. It may be wacky and tacky in my place, but wow, it's where I belong, and I wish that feeling for everyone in this, my holiday season.