Decking the Halls

Chip, chip, chip.

Hear that?

Tap, tap, chip, chip, chip.

That's the sound of me chipping away at my Christmas decorating. For my mom and siblings, decorating is an Event, one that requires entire rooms to stage and entire days to complete. For me, it's something that fills in the nonexistent nooks and crannies of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Granted, I don't have a whole lot of stuff to put up. Three boxes, tops, and they fit tidily in the space beneath the basement stairs, living a life from January to November very similar to that of Harry Potter. But even that seems a chore to me.

I seem to be missing the X-linked chromosome that makes me interested in this kind of thing. But my daughter isn't. After 20 minutes of hauling things up the stairs (and cleaning up after one glass ornament that never saw the light of day on the main level of our home), I was about done for last night. But she begged me to get more stuff out, to lift her up to the nails from which I'd removed "ordinary time" photos and tchochkes so she could place a wreath, a snowman, an Oriental Trading Christmas tree that our boy made in Sunday school two years ago. So I did.

After we'd washed the decorative towels, I asked my girl to hang them in the bathrooms. Then I sent her in to tell me what they said.

"What's the first letter?" I asked her.

"J!" she shouted triumphantly back.

I listened as she worked it out in her head.

"Juh...juh...joe...joe-eee...joe..."

Then she popped out the door and said, "Joy!"

And she was right.