Tannenbaum '10

It's a cold, snowy night in mid-December. The kind of night when one's thoughts naturally turn to that coldest of planets, Pluto. Provided there's an interesting discussion about its planetary status within easy reach, that is.

Closer to home, I'm glad we got a little snow, enough to cover the roof again. I'm pretty sure that helps the house keep its heat.

Our Christmas tree went up on Saturday, but because it was raining when we bought it, I insisted that we let it dry out until Sunday before decorating it. Amazingly, the girls didn't complain about that plan. On Sunday, they were all over the task, leaving only the lights and the star on top to me.

We have two stars that could be on the top: a gaudy, multicolored electric light star that plugs in, or a golden-colored hard plastic star with an elongated point on top that looks exactly like the star that went on top of our tree when I was growing up, at least in shape. My childhood star, older than I am, was silver instead of gold.

At some point about 10 years ago, back when I started putting up Christmas trees again, I acquired the golden star somewhere, and no fancy electric rainbow star is going to muscle it out of the top spot. But the girls wanted the more colorful star somewhere near the top, so now it sits a few inches below the golden star. Like Pluto, its status will not change in this house if I can help it.