I was perusing some “Blog Prompts” recently and the word FOLLY caught my eye. I like the word FOLLY although I rarely use it in regular everyday language. And for some reason, when I see it, I hear the joyful strains of “Deck the Halls” rise to the forefront of my mind. At first I thought with all the rhyming words, folly had to be in the lyrics somewhere, but alas, it is not. Maybe it’s just the repetition of “fa la la la la” that evokes the association. In fact, the only association to folly in the song is the image I paint in my mind of Dickens-era men and women dancing around the house as they festoon it with boughs of holly and light warm glowing fireplace logs.

The song takes me back to times where we sat in my grandmother’s living room with all the cousins singing Christmas carols. She kept an assortment of Christmas songbooks in a drawer in her coffee table. We would pull them out and leaf through the songs, finding our favorite and singing like there was no tomorrow. After opening our presents, the carols drifted off humming lips as we cleaned up wrapping paper or settled into a corner with our new favorite toy.

It sums up the holidays for me…

Family together around the tree.

Opening presents and watching the joy radiate from faces.

Listening to stories about Christmases past.

Leaving only crumbs on the cookie plate.

Yearning for the season to never end.

Hope your Christmas is filled with folly too!