Terry Marotta:
The Lovely Hush of Long December Nights

They blur so nicely together, these open days around Christmas.

Here’s what I love about this pool of days:

First, merely hearing the words "family hearth" and picturing the time when people really did gather together in one room of an evening. We do that so rarely these days; only in December do most of us spend any time in that corner of the house where a holiday candle or a tree might be placed. Earlier this month, when I toted the Christmas tree ornaments over to that seldom-used fireplace-end of the living room where we always put our tree, I was shocked to see two stuffed bunnies still decking the mantel. The sight was proof: I hadn’t spent any time in that corner of things since long-ago April. Now happily I am in there every evening, just enjoying the lights.

Second, seeing Christmas trees generally, real or fake, silver or green, shaggy as God made them or as pruned and pointy as traffic cones on the highway. I love our own family tree even in spite of what it does to us each year. You’ll understand what I mean when I tell you the first thing my husband asked when he called from work the day after we put up this year’s version: "Has the tree fallen down yet?" And neither of us laughed, because our trees really do fall down each year, however sturdy their stands, however many the cruel screws we drive into their trunks. One year the tree fell on Grandma, or very nearly did—Christmas trees fall pretty slowly. They kind of swoon, really, so you can catch them if you’re there. If not, you come home to find them pitched over on the floor, sleeping it off like happy drunks.

I sort of swooned myself once at this season, though the term "psychotic break" might be a more accurate description.

It was one early-December day when I entered my somber little post office to discover it had been decked out with a zillion hot-pink and lime-green lights that as they blinked emitted an endless loop of peppy holiday tunes, fast and high-pitched, and in time to the blinking.

When I first walked in I thought, "Cute! Like Disco Night in a Tom & Jerry cartoon!" But by the time it was my turn at the window I was ready to lunge across the counter and squeeze the poor postal clerk’s face in both my fists. Lucky for me, I came to myself. Lucky for us all, after just two days, some wise soul pulled the plug on the holiday magic and we were all able to resume shuffling snoozily forward in our line, the way people are meant to do at the post office.

Which brings me to the final thing I love about these days right around the 25th: the silence. The holly-jollies and the jingle-jangles come to an end, hallelujah, and there reigns in the land at last the lovely hush of the long December night.

Write Terry at tmarotta@comcast.net.