Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Christmas Day has come and gone. Garbage containers overflowing with empty boxes, torn wrapping paper and smashed bows have been rolled to curbs and roadsides across town and country. Fridges almost groaned from the weight of the leftover ambrosia, pecan pies, dressing, ham and other holiday delectables that would comprise a few more meals, and the newly empty space beneath all those trees looked almost forlorn. The non-stop Christmas music on certain radion stations has stopped.

Christmas is over for 2018.

Then again, maybe it isn’t. As a friend pointed out on December 26 on social media, the celebration for many local folks did not end on the 25^th. With the holiday falling early in the week, some celebrated with a portion of their family the weekend before, with plans to get together with the rest of the family and/or friends the weekend after Christmas. Some won’t get together until early January. Who says you have to celebrate a season as wonderful and magical as Christmas on just one day? Not I!

I am penning this column on Dec. 27 to once again meet early holiday deadlines. And I will be heading out of town on Dec. 28, hitching a ride with my oldest niece Heather on her way down from Nashville to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach. That’s where the Killough sisters and their kith and kin will gather on the weekend for a family celebration. It is always good when we can get together when no one is (A) having surgery or (B) has passed away. Those of you of a certain age can relate.

Benny’s work schedule won’t allow him to join us on the weekend, but we did get to enjoy three days together with our furry family, taking in a movie and lunch together and attending a beautiful service at First United Methodist Church on Christmas Eve, followed by a photographic tour of Greenville’s beautiful Christmas lights and decorations.

As I write this, I am looking forward to seeing my two older sisters and their families once again, sharing hugs and laughter and memories of “the days of long, long ago” when our parents were still with us, the C-7 bulbs glowed on the pine tree from the back forty and Mama’s dining room table groaned from the weight of her good southern cooking . . .

Here’s to good memories of “the most wonderful time of the year.”