These days. I miss the used to be. The way back when. I miss my Mother bringing in the mail, pouring her tenth cup of coffee, sitting down in her rocking chair in the den, opening more Christmas cards than I can count. Day after day after day. Taking time with each one. Studying the cover closely. Commenting on someone's handwriting - Look, how pretty! Now, you have some of the sloppiest handwriting I've ever seen. I don't know why you don't take time to write correctly. You used to win awards for your printing. - Well, yes, I did. In Kindergarten. And, yes, I miss this judgmental digression that was just normal day-to-day business. We laughed more than we cried. Way more. I miss those Christmas cards being lined up on the mantle on the fireplace, taped around every doorframe. Every one. Lined up on the kitchen counters. I miss the sounds that used to be. My Mother humming Christmas carols throughout every room. My Daddy cussing as he sawed down the wooly mammoth of a tree we drug home on the roof of the station wagon. Having to bring it through the door like he was fighting a bear. Cuss while he tried to make it stand up in a tree stand made for something half that size. Finally attaching fishing wire to the top of it and screwing a hook into the ceiling and tying that sucker off. Which was the way we 'hung' the tree each year. The sound of Daddy softly snoring in his Laz-boy recliner while he is 'watching tv'. - Don't turn that off! I was watching that. - Oh, how I miss what was. Ghost of Christmas past? Bring. It. On.