Auntie ABATE / “Cuz” Report

Dear ABATE members and friends,

Every December I think back on Christmases past. I am lucky enough to have good warm-fuzzy childhood feelings of what now seems a very long time ago. I remember going to cut our own Christmas tree on land that a friend of my father’s had. It was not a Christmas tree farm. Just miles and miles of fields that happened to have evergreen trees growing on it. I remember the snow being so deep that my mother needed to use a walking stick to get through it and of course every so often I remember her “sinking” in the depths of 1960ish Buffalo, NY snows, and of all of us laughing (including herself) at trying to pull her out to safer footing

Once we found the perfect tree, my brother was charged to cut it down, but first he had to shinny up the trunk and “Just cut the top off, Mike!” I can still hear the sound the saw makes as it is pushed precariously through the trunk of an evergreen. The top of the tree was probably 12’ high, so the whole tree was pretty gigantic. At least it seemed so when you are 7 and your brother is 17. Next came the task of dragging it back to the road where we could load it up, tie it down, and take it home. Of course, my father watched all the shenanigans from the window of the house while visiting with his friends because it would be rude to just take our tree and not visit

Those trees of my childhood had the very basic but beautiful decorations including large candle shaped lightbulbs, glittery ornaments, an angel at the top, and of course as much tinsel as could be placed one strand at a time by my mother—which she vacuumed up for months afterwards. I also have memories of keeping Tippy, the dog, from eating the tinsel and I remember cold nights sitting by the fireplace, watching the beauty of the lights and ornaments shimmering on the tree.  Even though we didn’t have a leg lamp it couldn’t have been more perfect.

Here’s wishing you and yours a lifetime of Christmas memory making no matter what your family or individual traditions are. Give the gift of memories this year for those are the ones most precious and those are the ones that last forever.

Your ever loving “Cuz”