The Merry Month of December

As I write this, I hear music floating in the air from our community tree lighting and holiday celebration. A carriage is taking people on rides, and Santa has already arrived to listen to the wishes of the little ones.

Now I'm ready to go home and start decorating my house. My lone tree in the front yard. The metal shed we put up after we demolished the garage.

Halloween is my favorite holiday to decorate, which doesn't surprise many people. After all, I do write paranormal romance. And even if my vampires and ghosts aren't real, I like to pretend they are.

Christmas comes in second. Maybe it's because I grew up in northwestern Ohio, where the frigid, snow-laden wind sweeping off Lake Erie can freeze you in thirty seconds, but I adore every bit of the lights and festive atmosphere that Christmas brings. I love Christmas music (which is no surprise, considering I'm a church choir director) and can't hear "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" too many times.

My decorating begins tomorrow night and this is my plan: Lots of everything. Red plastic ribbon and gold garland on my porch columns. Big, bright, multi-colored bulbs on the dogwood tree in front of the house. As gaudy a tree as I can manage, and wrapping paper in every hue on the gifts.

My spirits are so buoyed by the season, in fact, that nothing can burst my bubble ... not even the booze-inspired rendition of "I'll be home for Christmas" that will inevitably drift over from the neighbor's as I sit down to write late at night. Actually, as the slurred lyrics reach me, I make the same mental note all writers do from time to time.

You know .... "Hey, that will be great in a book someday."

Cammie Eicher