I'm loving our little tree this year.
Each year we put it up in the living
room, where I never go most days, so never actually appreciate it. But
with Ned's reorganizing going in full swing, meaning there was too much
stuff in the living room to put a tree, I decided to set it up on a small
table in the family room.
I can sit at my desk in my office and
look at it. I see it all day long and it makes me smile.
For most people, Christmas is still a
week away, but our Christmas will be Saturday, when Tom and family will be
here. We're just going to have our Christmas celebration then.
I've even purchased a turkey and all the fixin's for a regular Christmas
dinner.
The Christmas cookies have been baked
and delivered and today I got the packages wrapped, so I'm all ready for
"Christmas" whenever it comes. We haven't decided yet if we are going
to try to get my mother over here for Christmas or not. I'm thinking
probably not. If it would mean something to her, sure, but it won't
and after the first few minutes she'll be confused and ask me a dozen time
who the cute little girls are, unable to process that they are her great
grandchildren, which cuts each time she asks because she was so excited
about becoming a great grandmother ten years ago when Brianna was born...and
even after Lacie was born seven years ago.
I've been looking through old photo
albums and coming across a bunch of our "Christmas train" pictures.
One of my favorite holiday traditions.
We did this for many years....the kids usually had matching
pajamas and I would usually line them up under the tree--this was one of the
earlier pictures (1981) and I guess we hadn't yet moved it to the tree yet.
When we had foreign students, we would include them in the tree. I
don't remember how many years we did this--but many, many years. It's
fun to look at those old books and see how the kids change from year to
year.
While I am thinking fondly of our Christmas traditions -- the
tree, Bing Crosby' Christmas carols, egg nog, the big family dinner, the egg
nog gala, etc, I am afraid that my thoughts go to these guys.
These are some of the kids in that tent city in Texas where
children without parents, who either traveled to the US alone or who were
taken from their parents at the border are being housed. This
incarceration location is the largest, except for one other, "prison" in the
United States. For children. With barbed wire and armed
guards....and no plans for how to release them. It is near capacity
and more kids are added every day. It has already quadrupled in size.
When these kids go to bed on Christmas Eve, if they even know
it's Christmas Eve, there won't be any place to hang a stocking (if they
have stockings)
Santa's not going to be coming down the chimney and there
won't be turkey and presents for them. It's hard to fully enjoy
the holiday here when I know there are thousands of children missing their
parents and who may never get out of this prison.
(We won't even talk about the "the lucrative, secretive world
of the migrant-shelter business. About a dozen contractors operate more than
30 facilities in Texas alone, with numerous others contracted for about 100
shelters in 16 other states." --NY
Times)
And then there is
this. It was inevitable. It is, sadly, probably only the
first of what will eventually be more deaths. This seven year old girl
died 10 hours after being separated from her father at the border. She
died of dehydration and septic shock. Dehydration. They never
gave her a glass of water after she had been walking through the desert with
her father, escaping terrible conditions in her home country, hoping for
asylum. Seven years old. Lacie is seven years old.
Merry Christmas.
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