Last night the wind started. I was with Jack in the cat room when a wind shook the house. All three animals looked up. I looked at the walls. That was the strongest wind of all. It was scary.

My tree is still unlit, but that is only because I stayed away; now, however, I am ready again to brave the unlit lights except I have a plan. If they don’t get lit, I’ll just replace the strands. I have more.

We used to hang our stockings on the tiny bannister on the way upstairs. Mine was on the top. I was the oldest. I remember that Stocking and my name in glitter. Over time it started to unravel. That’s when I lost touch with my stocking. I figure it must have been tossed when my parents moved, and I was in Ghana. My sister, the youngest of the four of us, still has hers. I think because she and her stocking moved together. What a wonderful thing to have!

I gave each of my sisters’ kids, a niece and two nephews, their Christmas stockings. I even needle-pointed my niece’s, and my mother backed the stocking. I think it has immeasurable value, my mother’s handiwork. I also gave my niece and nephews’ kids their stockings. My sister told me it was a tradition. My last grandnephew was born a year ago. He got a different sort of stocking, one knitted by a woman in England. I found her on Etsy and have used her talents three times for three different stockings. She never disappointed.

I used to think that traditions came from way back. Some do but others are new. I used to fill three piñatas, one each for my niece and her two brothers, my nephews, to be whacked on Christmas Eve. It was a Christmas highlight. Now, my niece and my nephew filled piñatas for each others’ kids. It is an aunt and nephew thing.

I send gingerbread houses to be constructed and decorated to my niece and nephews. I started sending them to my sister’s kids when my oldest nephew was three. The houses are sent to their kids now. One of my favorites pictures of one year’s completed construction was the Star Wars encampment my grand-nephew built, the one who is now 16. Walls were still walls, but his walls circled a rebellion camp. He used his Star War figures to protect his people behind the walls of his gingerbread house. It was a grand design.