On the 13th day of December my blogger gave to me...

 wood

In the early days of my dad's Alzheimer's, he kept himself busy cutting out shapes from wood with a scroll saw. For hours a day, he would cut-cut-cut -- he cut out hundreds and hundreds (thousands?) of things. He made shapes for elementary classrooms, for his grandchildren, by special request -- and he made an unbelievable number of Christmas ornament shapes. It kept him productive and he has left quite a legacy. At the same time, it has been heartbreaking to watch this disease steal him away slowly and the cutouts are a physical reminder of that.

Initially I painted, stained, and displayed his cutouts of trees, stars and the nativity. Some I even put out "unfinished" because, as the daughter of a carpenter, I like the look and smell of raw wood. But there was yet another box of things in storage in the house that I had not been able to face yet. Until now. Maybe I was intimidated by the idea that whatever I do with these, they are the last of them. There will be no more as Dad is far beyond the stage of making anymore things.

I've waited so long to figure out just the right treatment for these and now I realize I'll just need to forgive myself if I don't get it exactly right. Why the varsity colour scheme? For no other reason than I saw some vintage Christmas balls for a lot of money in a cute little shop and they seemed homey and I liked them -- like an old sweater. Sometimes it's as simple as that.

So today's post is about procrastination. About getting out the ghosts of Christmases past and dealing with them. I think you'll be glad you did.