It's Coming on Christmas, They're Cutting Down Trees

It's funny how some things put a whammy on you.

I imagine everyone's heads are filled with memories that sit there as though in so many little file cabinets, waiting for something or someone to come along with a shiny little key and unlock the drawers and pull one out.

Some heads have more than others. I forget nothing. And in fact, I can churn out alarming amounts of detail on the most inane events. So long as I was paying attention, I have it all down. I'd make a great eye witness. Again, so long as I was paying attention. If I was at the event out of lip service and absorbed in something more important while giving the appearance of being alert and engaged, all bets are off. Chances are someone was prattling on about what on Earth we are going to do about the neighbors that put out their recycling a day early and I was trying to think of when I might be able to wedge a bikini wax appointment into my schedule before heading to the beach.

And then there are those whose file drawers are empty. Or nearly so. Like my brother Joe's. I swear he'd need a hint to remember his own children's names if his shrew wife weren't screeching them at the top of her lungs all the time.

So as holidays will do, Christmas has come along with a shiny brass key to unlock a few file drawers in my head.

I love the sights and smells of Christmas. The pine cones and candles and twinkling lights and a fresh tree - and the way a whiff of pine wafts in when the front door is opened and a wreath of fresh greens is revealed.

My house is decorated. Has been. I decorated it the first weekend in December while Hil and Pat were with me. I wanted their participation, their excitement. And when they arrived home from Lars Den of Iniquity, it would already be Christmas. Like the Homecoming without the destitution or drunken old Baldwin sisters.

This morning I lit a few candles and the tree to enjoy a fabulous cup of spicy coffee from Trader Joe's. The kids were still asleep and I wanted to bring home the holiday before they arose. I went to find some matches and also found (in one of those magical catch all drawers we all have and won't admit we do) a small box of Balsam Fir Incense sticks.

The little plastic box is so familiar. Clear with green engraved writing on the top. They come from Auburn, Maine and promise to bring the Pine Woods to your home.

What it brought to my home was my Dad.

Dad loved the smell. I have never experienced it repeated by any other candle or thing. It is distinctive and powerful and takes me back to my childhood home and memories of Christmases there - with my mother, without my mother, happy, melancholy, all of them. And the unique memories - the cat trying to climb the tree, the night I singed my bangs trying to light a pillar candle in a glass, the time Charlotte went to blow out the oil lamp and grabbed the searing glass with her bare hands, Mom grousing her way through making cookies with the cookie press.

Dad was in sales, so he was out and about all over town every day. His one customer was a gift shop (long before the introduction of those cheesy Hallmark stores...) and every November, he'd stop in for a tiny box of the Balsam Fir Incense. I have one of those boxes. Taken from his house when he prepared to move to Assisted Living. There are 40 sticks in the box, and the price sticker reads "$3.25." I wonder what that is in dog years? These things probably compete with Yankee Candles on the price point scale by now.

But to bring a little bit of Dad into my home and to dwell on his memory at the holidays is priceless to me. Sadly, I am down to may last half dozen sticks. The company name is Paine's, and the good people at Paine's have placed a little card inside the box touting the wonder of these little things. And at the bottom of the card is an address. I would guess that this is Paine's busy time of year up in Maine. I think I will Google/Bing/Dogpile search them and find out if they are still in he business of producing these wondrous little sticks.

And order a case of incense so that Charlotte and Joe and I can bring Dad into the house for all the Christmases yet to come. Maybe Joe will even find a memory or two unlocked by the scent. It has unlocked a million of them for me.