Each year as the holiday season approaches I travel back in memory to those early years in the country.

Christmastime! How we loved it and looked forward to it! And how we enjoyed the preparations!

About three weeks before Christmas, our mother would bring out the heavy cast-iron skillets and begin to make candy. We kids cracked and shelled the hickory nuts and the walnuts she used. There'd be chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge, divinity and (my favorite) penoche. And, of course, there'd be molasses taffy to pull.

She always left a little in the bottom of the skillet when she poured the candy into sheet tins to harden enough to cut. And we did not hesitate to "lick the platter clean."

The candy was stored in large stoneware crocks, to be brought out after the tree was up. Strangely enough, when the crocks were uncovered, there never seemed to be as much candy in them as there had been.

After she brought out the candy, we'd pop corn until she had enough for a large pan of popcorn balls and another of sugar-coated popcorn. And then she made fragrant spicy gingerbread men!

We made our tree decorations. First, we made a long paper chain. We'd turn through the wallpaper sample catalog and pick out the prettiest, most colorful patterns, then cut these sheets into strips which -- with the aid of a pot of flour and water paste -- we made into links joined together to form a chain.

Having saved tinfoil all year, we'd smooth each piece before cutting it into very, very thin strips for icicles. From a sheet of cotton batting, we pulled bits of cotton to make snow on the tree.

We always had a long string of snowy popcorn to wind around the tree. (I never could get the hang of stringing it without breaking the popcorn.) If we could afford to buy cranberries, we strung them to make a pretty red rope.

The star for the tree top was the trickiest. Cut from cardboard, it had to be a perfect five-point star. And finding a piece of tinfoil large enough to cover it was not easy. The foil from a tobacco tin was not nearly large enough. (Why we didn't save the star from year to year, I don't know. I suppose it just did not occur to us.)

As Christmas neared, the feeling of excitement grew.

There'd be the school's Christmas program to get through -- and then vacation. But the vacation would be busy. Our mother insisted that the house be especially clean for Christmas, so there were windows to wash, furniture to shine and so on.

And always the wondering: what would we get for Christmas? We knew we'd each find several things -- books, toys, games, maybe a warm cap or mittens -- under the tree on Christmas morning. But would the things we wanted most be underneath the tree?

The tree that we still had to put up and decorate.

The tree that was still standing somewhere in the woods.