When most people think of Christmas, they think red and green.  For me it has always been blue and white.  We have a silver tree with dark blue “swag” that perpetually sways drunkenly because we have cats.  This was the first year my little girl helped me decorate the tree.  Every place we have traveled we always buy a Christmas ornament as a souvenir.  And so I explained to her where we brought this or that and she was delighted.  I know she will come to cherish them even more as she grows older.  It is like revisiting our trips with the placing of each bauble.  As she carefully helped me arrange the ornaments I thought it was no small coincidence that the first one she chose was Notre Dame — the place in which she took her first steps alone.  A Cafe du Monde ornament from New Orleans is hanging next to a trolley car from San Francisco.  A couple in a gondola dangles next to the Eiffel Tower, representing our honeymoon in Venice and Paris.  There is a Santa holding a cactus from Phoenix from the first trip Maris ever took.  Of course our tree has primarily wolf ornaments.  Some of my most beloved we got in Alaska, Quebec, and Santa Fe.  My very favorite ornament I chose to post.  I just cherish him and bought him a long time ago when I was single.  American author Louis L’Amour said, “No memory is ever alone; it’s at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.”  And so I see our Christmas tree as a tangible display of our life’s intangible treasures — yet another wonderful thing about Christmas.  At the top of our tree is a starfish from Florida.  Ave Maris Stella; Hail Star of the Sea.  So deck the halls one and all, y’all, and be blessed.