RIVER CITY JOURNAL: HO! HO! HO! WHERE DOES TIME GO WHEN IT'S READY TO SNOW?

Here's the answer: When you reach a certain age, there are still 24 hours in a day. But you forget most of their names.

Finally, all the Christmas decorations are up at our house.

If I sound a little exasperated, it's because someone my age starts to find simple chores are getting harder.

I've heard that a lot recently. I went to the doctor recently for my annual checkup. Several times he mentioned things pertinent to "a man your age."

Good grief.

I'm not the first fellow ever to have gray hair.

I take that back. Make it white hair. A man my age couldn't possibly have just plain gray hair.

Once upon a time -- that would be the first Christmas after my wife and I were married -- we managed to do all of our holiday decorating in about a hour.

Of course, we were young, broke, in love and willing to shoot two weeks of grocery money for the biggest Scotch pine we could tie on top of our Volkswagen bug. I'll swear it looked like we were driving the tree home as we left the supermarket parking lot.

We had gone to the supermarket to buy food. We left with this monster of a tree.

Having blown all our liquid assets on the tree, we had nothing left for tree ornaments. My wife, inspired and frugal person that she is, found enough change to buy a good-sized bag of those round peppermint candies wrapped in cellophane. At home, we found some red twine. We spent the next hour tying dozens of peppermints to the branches of the tree. We still agree that it was just about the best Christmas tree ever.

Did I say that took an hour?

That was decorating time. It did not include the time it took to set up the tree.

In our household, stories about Pop getting an evergreen to stand up straight in the living room are legend. Think about it: Evergreens are outdoor creatures. Try bringing them inside, freshly amputated from their life-support system, and they are bound to make a fuss.

My trees elevated fussing to a war zone.

Over the years, we managed to spend more grocery money on lights and red balls -- the kind that shatter into a gazillion shards when dropped. And we've amassed quite a collection of handmade ornaments crafted by our sons, friends and relatives. We also have become the family caretakers of ornaments that have been in our respective families for longer than anyone can remember. For example, there are two small metal bells from my family's trees of Christmases past. They still dangle from sturdy hangers made of baling wire. That should give you some clue about how old they are. From my wife's family comes the gold teardrop-shaped ornament that tends to glow after all these years. It always gets its own special box when it's packed away for the next Christmas.

Then there are the ornaments our sons have made. In particular, we like the small round frame enclosing a snapshot of our younger son in his Cub Scout uniform -- obviously a project at a holiday Cub Scout meeting. Some den mothers are so clever. And patient. And there's the plaster-of-paris candy cane from our older son, still bright red and white.

At the very tiptop of every tree since our second Christmas has been an ornament consisting of three red velvet balls. Let's see, I figure that cost us about two gallons of milk, four loaves of bread and five pounds of hamburger. The tree topper is starting to show its age.

But aren't we all?

At first, decorating for Christmas didn't take long because we didn't have much to decorate with. Later, sons were pressed into service to help with stringing lights along the eaves of the house. This is how fathers teach their sons that special language that is only useful when a grown man does battle with wads of 150-foot strings of Christmas lights -- and always loses. Along the way, however, you get to say interesting things that make the eyes of 6-year-old and 10-year-old boys grow wide with wonder. These are pretty much the same words that have evolved from the ancient language of amateur nail hammering. I think you get my drift.

Since our sons have their own lives to live, my wife and I once again have to rely on our own resources at decorating time. But, at our age, we have to plan carefully in order to get everything done right.

The outdoor decorations have been streamlined to one lighted wreath on the fireplace chimney and wreaths of fresh greens on the front and back doors.

Inside, most of the attention goes to the tree itself, plus a few seasonal knicknacks around the house.

Then why did it take so long this year?

First the outdoor stuff went up. A week went by.

The artificial tree -- no more Scotch pines from the grocery store -- came out of hiding in the basement. It stood undecorated in the family room for days.

Finally, the lights and all the other decorations were put in place on the tree. It's a wonderful sight to behold.

All in all, it only took three weeks.

But, at my age, why should I worry about that?

If Methuselah really lived to be 969 years old, I'll bet he never tried to figure out which light -- in a string of 300 -- is burned out. And I'll bet he never owned a hammer.

At least I didn't see anything about that in my Bible.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.