Arlington man celebrates Christmas early in honor of late wife

ARLINGTON - The landscaping and the preparations began Saturday afternoon at David Martindale's home.

He's a freelance writer, still grieving the loss of his wife.

David's wife, Celeste Williams, was a sports writer and editor for the Star-Telegram. Celeste was a pioneer for women in sports journalism.

In the spring of this year, Celeste was very sick from cancer and in hospice care at home with David.

 "In May, it became really clear that she didn't have much time left so I asked 'Would it be really ridiculous if I made Christmas one more time?' She said, 'No, that's fine,'" David recalled. "She loved Christmas. She loved the decorating part of it most of all. So I spent four days decorating the house. We had Christmas. It was a good day, and she died two days later."

David left the decorations up for months. To battle loneliness, he played a lot of softball in several leagues every week.

"It seems silly, but playing softball 5 or 4 times a week does it for me," he said.

It was David's team that decided that he needed Christmas decorating help now.

"We've all played together for a few years now and we just decided to come over and decorate his house," Darin Martin said.

"It makes me happy," David admitted. "These are really good friends that I have."