An entertainer named Michael Martin Murphey clinched the idea at a concert in San Antonio at Trinity University a few days before Christmas. His act centered on the Anson, Texas Cowboy's Ball going back to 1894. Mr. Murphey plays cowboy music far aside and apart from today's Country Western genre.

He spins a lot of warm stories of the bygone days he calls, "when cattle were many and people few." Listening about Christmas trees being dragged from the pasture horseback and granddad flipping off the electricity on the way back from milking to shut off the TV and turn on an oldtime Christmas causes a big lump to form in your throat.

The reason I say, "Mr. Murphey clinched the idea" is that I 'd already cut a juniper cedar at the ranch for a Christmas tree, but hadn't made up my mind to bring a dehydrated mass of shattering leaves and berries indoors.

Aunt Ty Tankersley over in Mertzon had given me a needle and a spool of nylon fishing line to thread popcorn strings. A fulltime mother of a couple of school kids brought by 40 sheets of colored construction paper to cut rings of red and green necklaces, I guess you call them. She also had to explain there was no such thing as paste, so I had to use glue. I wanted to ask her what first grade boys ate instead of paste, but knew I didn't have the license to reminisce like Michael Martin Murphey, especially with a mother already in near exhaustion from the holidays.

Coming back from San Antonio, I watched for an independent store to buy a sack of candy canes. Mr. Murphey and nostalgia weren't the only ruling forces. Sure, I was starting over by going back to odd-shaped cedar trees in place of alien firs and corn popped in a skillet instead of burst from a sack in a microwave. But I'd also vowed I wasn't going to buy a sparkle or a spangle, a fake icicle or phony snowball, a laughing Santa Claus or a plastic reindeer from Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Hooey Mart, or any other kind of community destructive discount house of mart.

The rest of the world might not approve of the old tree. But out 22 miles from Mertzon in the living room of a ranch house, the rest of world doesn't have a vote on Christmas Day. A long ago martial schism removed the threat of the second party, or uxorial veto so commonplace for either the degeneration or regeneration of man's standards. As long as Congress didn't create a Commission for the Celebration of Holidays, I felt on safe ground choosing how to celebrate Christmas.

The first night home, the kitchen looked like the annual cedar chopper's ball had been held in the room and ended in a popcorn ball fight. Before I caught on how to thread the popcorn, about every other kernel split into five pieces to fall on the floor. Aunt Ty's darning needle threaded with fishing cord was too big. I ended up using a squint-eyed, small gauge needle designed to draw blood from man's thumbs and forefingers. I looked for a thimble in the sewing box where I also keep fishing tackle and store the wrenches to the bobble on Mother's old sewing machine, but must have misplaced it in my catch-all drawer among the Band-Aids and vaccinating needles.

By the second night, company arrived. My son John and his new wife from Connecticut, his brother Ben Noelke, a lady from Austin, and a big black bird dog pup of Lea Noelke's, (a third brother) from the same city came for supper. All parties either liked the idea of an old-fashioned tree, or were too stunned by the feeble branches loaded with popcorn to comment.

The pup's enthusiasm for ranch life was real. His coming along was not a spur of the moment decision. On the Third Sunday of Advent, he chewed up his mistress' high priced 7x35 bird watching binoculars and buried them six inches underneath the St. Augustine turf in the backyard. The discovery of the crime on the Fourth Sunday of Advent created a very sensitive scene indeed at the Lea Noelke house. So in order for John to borrow Lea's pickup to come from Austin, he had to help spring his dog to hide out at my outfit.

The new spirit helped the guests adjust to no television or traffic sounds. John's wife fashioned a crèche of wisemen and the flocks made from dried thistle burrs and flower bed shells around a stable from a crooked weathered stump. Red berries and green leaves fell on a red tablecloth below the tree; shadows from colored candles burning on the dining table lighted an arc high enough to reflect on the homemade star and encircle the crèche.

We touched glasses, held hands, bowed and asked for peace. Even old Buck the binocular-eating dog lay quiet for Christmas Eve ...

January 6, 2000