Growing up, we always had Christmas traditions and I took part in all of it.  In Mom's family, it's a tradition to make a village every December.  Did I mention that my mom loves Christmas?  The village consists of a tiered landscape sometimes as big as 8 feet tall and wide, made of boxes that are covered with a white sheet and adorned with tiny Christmas lights...white ones.  Then we proceed to add countless boxes of miniature everything.  People, houses, cars and animals and Disneyland characters...snow covered trees, skating rinks, sleds and reindeer.  One year I made a flying helicopter suspended from the ceiling and another year I spent hours making a tunnel for a working train.  Through high school and even into college, we kept making the village (and my mom continues to make it at her house).  Some years it was minimal because we knew we'd be going away, and others would be extravagant, but eventually the time came for me to leave home, and since then, the village has taken a backseat, so to speak.

Mom does a good job of slowly building up my collection of Christmas paraphanelia, and little doo dads that could go on my village someday, but I have to admit that I dont have the same Christmas spirit that I once had.  I have some excuses though.  The first, and foremost being space.  We brought a Christmas tree in last year, and there it sat in our living room until about February.  We felt like we owed the tree some token of our gratitude, so we tried to appreciate it for as long as possible.  Oh, and that little part about having to take the time to dismantle and clean up all the stuff.  Put all the ornaments back in the little boxes and up into the attic.  We're good at procrastinating.  The second excuse is dogs.  They like to frolic and jump and chase stuffed animals, and in this little living room, that doesn't leave much hope for ceramic houses and little people that barely have enough mass to hold themselves up.  Therefore, we're left with a few little shelf and window ledges for any type of village.  Oh, and the part about having to get all the boxes down from the attic, and to have to put them back up there in February again.  

So this Christmas, I put an elf out on the speaker and a figurine of a Santa Claus on the bookshelf.  Our neighbor gave us a Poinsettia.  So what's the deal here?  How did I grow up with such a big emphasis and interest in the Christmas decorating and hub-ub - to turn into this complacent non-decorator?  I don't know.  That's my answer.  I think that when I have kids it will be a different story.  I think I'll get into the spirit of giving and using what we have to make our house festive for one month (or 3 if I'm still a procrastinator) of the year.  Part of me worries that it won't come back.  That my distaste for materialism and the gathering of things-I-dont-need-that-take-up-space will continue to get the better of me, and turn me into a Christmas Grinch.  

I do like being in a room with a village all lit up and just sitting there in the dark imagining the lives of all the miniature people walking in the snowy landscape.  I do.  I do like the feeling that the holidays are something fun and full of holiday colors and smells, and more than just shopping stats on NPR.  I don't like chores and cleaning up more than I already have to.  There's something to be said, too, for decorating for other people.  If friends are coming over or kids are there to partake and enjoy the traditions, it makes it all more meaningful.  

So next year, I'm going to make more of an effort; that is, if we're even staying here for Christmas.  I don't think I'll get a tree, but I'll get up in the attic and pull a few things down.  Maybe move a few books out of the bookshelf to fix up a little village even.  Maybe we'll invite people over so they can enjoy it too, in the Spirit of Christmas.