It’s Christmas Eve and I hope you’re relaxing in your living room with the lights of the Christmas tree twinkling in the background, your shopping finally finished.

If you’re anything like me, your living room will be far from that tranquil scene tomorrow morning. Many of us will face hills of discarded wrapping paper, cranky children wading through that paper and at least two sticky spots where somebody spilled egg nog.

Instead of snow falling outside, we’re running the air conditioner, wearing shorts and our flip-flops are by the back door.

No designer Christmas tree in our living room – there’s ornaments held together by hot glue, macaroni angel ornaments that are over 30 years old and most of the McDonald’s Happy Meal ornaments from the last 20 years ago.

Some of the ornaments are hanging by paper clips because, despite buying a new box of hangers every year, I can’t ever find those boxes when we’re decorating the tree.

There’s red, blue and purple miniature colored lights on the top two thirds of the tree, but the bottom is solid white lights. The reason is simple – I forgot to buy another strand of colored lights. Instead, I bought three boxes of small white ones, but we’d already put the colored ones on the tree so we left them alone.

I don’t think Martha Stewart would approve but the tree has a quirky look I’m starting to like.

This year, though, the Christmas tree stands straight and tall. That’s because I wasn’t involved in putting the tree in the stand. Usually I’m the one holding the tree while my husband attaches the trunk to the stand.

He’ll keep asking if the tree is straight, and I think it’s straight until he says he’s finished. Then I step back and realize I wasn’t holding it completely straight. I’ll go down with the ship proclaiming the tree – no matter if it’s at a 15-degree angle – is completely straight.

My daughter in law, who’s a lot taller than I am, stepped in to hold the tree which she did perfectly. She’s now earned the permanent title of Santa’s helper.

There’s curling ribbon on all of the presents, and that’s been my decorating stamp for the past decade. I’ve tried other embellishments, but they didn’t work out.

There was the year I used twine as ribbon because I saw it in a magazine. We had to get my husband’s Swiss Army knife out to cut the strands off every single package. I thought I was going to get strung up by that twine by the end of the evening.

Another year I thought about using real ribbon until I saw satin ribbon was $2 for 10 feet of ribbon. And then I found curling ribbon – 500 feet for $1.88. We have every color of the rainbow of curling ribbon.

I did wrap the presents that go out of town in a different color paper but only because I bought a jumbo roll of green wrapping paper three years ago. That paper never runs out no matter how many presents I wrap.

When there’s no longer presents underneath the branches, the tree will look lonely, but the smiles on the faces of the people I love when they open the boxes will remind me that gifts aren’t meant to stay pretty under the tree – they’re not worth anything until the recipient sees what’s inside.

But tonight, before one of the holiest days of the year, I’m making myself stay awake until I hear Santa’s sleigh pass overhead.

And then I’ll pray “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

We were at a friend’s house for dinner not too long ago, and as soon as we finished the main course, the hostess cleared the table.

We joined in, thinking it was time for dessert and coffee. We helped slice up the cake; but as soon as the first person finished their dessert, the hostess once again jumped up and started picking up plates and forks.

I felt a little sad that we were missing out on one of the best parts of dinner – the after-the-meal conversation.

Here we were, grownups in a world filled with political upheaval, terrorism, the fate of the Astros, LSU and Aggie football but we weren’t taking advantage of an opportunity to let our food digest as we leisurely discussed and solved the world’s issues.

Growing up, lively discussions were as much a part of the Hebert Sunday dinner as mashed potatoes and gravy. Even though politics are supposed to be a taboo subject, we Heberts did not follow that particular rule because it was ever so much fun to rile up the relatives.

My grandmother, a staunch Democrat who grew up with Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a first-hand witness to the Depression.

She said if we put a Republican in the governor’s office in Louisiana, we’d all be “goose steppin’ down Canal Street.” Throw in my brother, who was president of the Young Republican’s Club at our local high school, and those dinner conversations could get quite heated.

But the best person to egg on was my father. He grew up in the Eisenhower days and firmly believed the Communists were behind every political malfeasance that came to light.

The words “it’s a communist plot” were his final answer to every political argument we had around that oval dinner table.

To this day, 15 years after Dad’s passing, whenever we hit a stalemate when debating the quandary of what the world’s coming to, the final word will be “well, it’s a communist plot.” That releases the tension and everybody’s on good terms again.

And then there’s the family story of the true definition of heartburn. One Sunday over dessert, my grandmother said heart burn wasn’t really in the heart. We all nodded in polite agreement and then moved back to the conversations we were having.

“Yep, heartburn really isn’t in the heart,” my grandmother said to the ceiling.

“I didn’t know that,” said my mother, the eternal peacemaker.

Once again, we all went back to our conversations.

“That’s right,” my grandmother said. “Heartburn really isn’t in the heart.”

At this remark, my sister buried her head in the napkin, but we could see her shoulders heaving with laughter.

And then my middle sister, who’s always had a rebel streak, made a statement.

“You know, heartburn isn’t really in the heart,” she said with a straight face.

My grandmother agreed with her wholeheartedly, looking at her like she was a genius. At that point, we all had to leave the dinner table with our napkins over our mouths so Grandma wouldn’t see how hard we were laughing.

Now whenever there’s a lull in the conversation around the dinner table, someone invariably says “You know, heartburn isn’t really in your heart.” And that starts the laughing all over again and the need to explain the joke to newcomers.

I thought about those dinner-table conversations as my friend was hurrying to clear off the dessert plates so I stopped her.

“Sit down, let’s talk and we’ll clear the table together later on,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “I’ll tell you all about heartburn. Did you know it’s really not in the heart?”

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

“Do you have your tree up?” my mother asked last night.

“Ma, it’s the first day of December,” I replied, a bit of exasperation in my voice. “Of course I don’t have the Christmas tree up.”

When it comes to holiday decorating, I’d definitely make Santa’s naughty list. I don’t have tubs filled with Christmas decorations up in the attic, I don’t own Christmas towels and there’s not a 12-foot inflatable Frosty the Snowman in our garage.

“But it’s already December,” my mom said.

I reminded her that we’re still eating Thanksgiving turkey and Halloween Kit-Kat bars so it’s inconceivable that we’d have Christmas decorations up on the first day of December.

The truth is, I’ve never been a holiday decorator. When the boys were young, I relied on them to make our holiday decorations in school. For years, most of the ornaments on our tree were either made from macaroni, construction paper or were the feature of the week in a holiday Happy Meal.

I’d hang their construction-paper rings on the tree and convince myself garland and tinsel would detract from the boys’ glitter-heavy hand-made stars and Popsicle-stick Christmas trees.

When we lived in Pecan Grove, we felt the pressure to outline our yard with lights. Luckily my husband took care of stringing the lights and running the extension cords. We met the bare minimum, and I was happy with that situation. When over-sized lollipops were big in yard decorations, I wanted to get a few. A friend told me how to use wrapping paper, twine and a big dowel rod to make them. I thought they were pretty nifty until the boys decided to stage a full-out battle in the front yard using the lollipops as battering rams.

One year, I bought a couple of light-up reindeer for the yard. Because I’m basically a cheapskate, I bought small light-up plastic reindeer. The neighbor’s son came over and asked why we had had dogs instead of reindeer in our yard.

“Those are reindeer,” I told him.

“Those are the size of a puppy,” the 8-year-old said.

From then on, my husband christened them the “rain-dogs,” and they’ve been a staple in the Adams front yard for many years.

But it’s not just the outside where I slack off. Inside decorations are pretty much limited to the tree, a nativity set and occasionally a miniature winter village for the writing table.

A few years ago, the lights burnt out on the cord, and I couldn’t find replacement bulbs. I boxed the set up and forgot I didn’t have bulbs. But I keep getting the box out of the attic year after year, smacking myself in the head for not finding the bulbs and the box went back in the attic after the holidays.

I keep seeing knick-knacks in the store to put on shelves, but there are some items on our shelves that haven’t moved in years. I’m certainly not going to box them up and replace them with ceramic Santas and Rudolphs for three weeks and repeat the process.

In my defense, I did put garland and twinkling lights around our front staircase banister when the boys were young. Although it looked nice, the only real benefit was the pointy garland kept the boys from sliding down the banister when they thought I wasn’t looking.

But I’m not a humbug – I insist we have a real tree and I get choked up up the first time we turn on the tree lights. Late at night, I’ll curl up on the couch and think about past Christmases and I can almost hear my sons’ voices asking me if Santa will bring them what’s on their list.

But the tree’s not going up until the first weekend in December. Or maybe the second. Or the third…

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.