It's Starting

She's always first.

Her packages are secured by multiple layers of his-old-firm's tape; this year I did not bleed while extricating the treasure from within.  

Huzzah!

The treasure resides beneath my Tree of White House Ornaments v.2, 

awaiting the start of Hanukkah.  

I'm not mixing holidays on purpose;  this just seemed like the logical place to stash a pretty, small, heavy box.  We're a blended, all mixed up family, sharing our celebrations in all directions.  It's The Holiday Celebration Tour and we take and make our pleasures where we pleases.

Besides, were I really looking for correctness, I'd bring my desert outside inside, since Bethlehem looks more like Tucson than Germany's Black Forest.  But it's not about religious or historical symbolism to me; it's about memories and smiles and the notion that TBG's colleague has been sending us these ornaments for decades.  

I needed two trees to display them.

We are in the interregnum, the extra week granted bakers and shippers and shoppers when Thanksgiving comes in the 4th not the 5th week of November.  I feel like I should have more time.  Yet there it was, her box, sitting on my front doorstep, alerting me to the beginning of The Season of Frantic Mailing.  

Everything is in place.  It's just a matter of starting.  Tonight is the first of our holiday-dinners-with-friends.  I'll be bringing brownies.  I'd better start baking them now.