Finals and Decorating

Katie is in the midst of finals this week. Changed a bit since I was in nursing school. She took one on line. I know it has really changed since my sisters were in college.
The finals were done and time to pick up Diane from the Youngstown Airport. Her flight from Sterling, Kansas came in there. Gerri Lee home from Grove City College. Actually, I'm getting the years mixed up, but a lot of excitement with sisters coming home.
We spent all day cleaning and then decorating, listening to that great Christmas music on the white and gray record player throughout the big house. I probably played and stayed out of the way more than anything.
Diane cut out snowflakes from red tissue paper, taping one on each glass window in the dark stained wood and glass door between our living room and middle room. I always tried to replicate that breezy, fluttery snowflake in various areas. Our third married Christmas in Connecticut at the Falls Mills apartments with the textile mill high ceilings, I insisted on the biggest tree we could get and put that on top of an Escort. Nostalgia has no judgment. The church we attended had the Christmas tree sale. We had the huge tree, but few ornaments, so I cut out fluffy large snowflakes and scattered them all over the tree. I thought it looked gorgeous.
I also used snowflakes the next year on the telemetry floor where I worked with red hearts hanging in between the snowflakes, of course. What else for a heart monitoring unit?
Even as a child, I was amazed at how a family could transform the home into Christmas magic in quick time. Diane made Christmas cookies, too. Cut out sugar cookies. I wonder what her girls think of that?
Now a days, this would definitely be too late to decorate around the third week of December, with most people all fancy before Thanksgiving and carols playing in the malls. But those days long ago, we celebrated more between Christmas and New Years, when the kids were out of school, college students home on break and some mills even closed during that time. Now, Christmas break goes faster than summer and some are ready to pack up the tree December 26, and the latest by January 1. I don't mind Christmas coming earlier, but let's keep it a little longer.