This is a windy Tuesday morning and the temperature is over 50 degrees outside. Two mornings ago it was five above on the thermometer outside the bedroom window, at 7 am. The “frosting” of snow we got last week is completely gone. This is New England!

Wendy and Michael came Sunday and put up my Christmas tree. It is beautiful. Wendy hung all the ornaments after they had both put the lights in place, while I went to the market with Michael and did a very large order with someone to push the shopping cart and help by lugging the bundles. I bought enough to last a couple of weeks.

I debated two days and decided to put tinsel on the tree. It may take me till Christmas to do it! I can’t reach too well or too much – things like folding the sheets as they come out of the dryer or getting a bottle of vanilla off the top shelf in the cupboard. So every time I walk by the tree, I take a few strands of icicles and hang them on an empty branch. At present it’s a bit lopsided but I  figure by December 25 it will be done.

I wish Phil Jones of the Christmas Tree Farm in Huntington lived next door and could tell me what kind of an evergreen this tree is… it is the most fragrant one I’ve ever had.

This morning I checked the water in the stand – Wendy filled it Sunday. It needed a refill and I remembered what the gardener on television suggested. He said fill it up with ice cubes, and you won’t spill water on presents or the “skirt” around the tree. What a good idea.

I am able to tell where all the ornaments came from, and this year I’ve added several. Susan brought me two from Hershey when she was there a month ago. Ed Coffey gave me a beautiful little bluebird that clips to a branch. A circle of small sand dollars my friend next door, Phyllis, brought me last year from Florida looks nice on the dark tree. They join the many home made ones saved carefully that were made by my five children and several grandchildren and the very prized pear shaped one that was first on a tree in 1919! There are several from my husband’s childhood trees, and a large number made by friends.

The tree is a sort of life history, representing the old, the new, and the in-between-times and fashions. It is a happy reminder of certain times, places, and people, creating memories that we all renew, each December.

Wendy used her expertise on the computer and turned my rough draft of a newsletter into a masterpiece of perfection. Christmas greetings in red ink inside a holiday border exceed my ability but it is nice to have someone do such a great job! Some folks don’t like the practice of including a letter in a Christmas card, but I love it. What a nice way to stay a little closer to friends and relatives!

Even as I write this column, the temperature has dropped ten degrees and is still heading downward. I took a break and went outside the glass doors and fed the birds. Not much stayed in the lower branches of the big spruce tree – the wind whipped it away. I got cracked corn this week to put at the perimeter of the yard and mixed seeds go just under the tree where the juncos feed. With the snow gone, they scratch in the leaves and dirt.

The woodpecker looks funny as it clings to the suet cake, its feathers ruffling up and down in the wind.

With one full week before the holiday weekend, people rush to get all their errands done. There is still time to get items to touch social workers who are preparing to provide a happy holiday for families who need a little help. With so much to do, it is the time to stop and listen to some special Christmas music, or take a small gift to someone in a nursing home or hospital. Those are the things that really matter.

Last week the column closed with words of Henry Beston, from “The Outermost House.”

Who said “Home is where the college student home for the holidays, isn’t”?