A tree of memories
Husband Walter has been working on assembling our artftcial Christmas tree today and yesterday. This is its final year. It is shedding needles . . . and branches.
How could that be? We just bought it in an after-Christmas sale a few years ago. A few years? Hubby informed me it was in 1995. That’s sixteen years ago.
As hubby was wrestling with strings of lights, I tossed out the idea that we could just go buy a new tree. No, he had already invested energy and heavy thinking into wiring limbs in place and putting some of the lights on. Besides, paying full, before-Christmas prices for seasonal decorations and “stuff” is not in our genetic code.
At least I haven’t seen any silver duct tape holding the tree together . . . yet.
Now don’t start cringing if you choose to deck the halls well after Thanksgiving. I have a good reason for an early tree set up. I am hoping for a repeat of last year’s tree decorating with grandkids and their moms and dads following our after-Thanksgiving meal Friday.
Grandchildren create the 2010 edition of our Christmas tree.
For each of our sons there is a box containing ornaments that we gave them each year and ornaments they made in elementary school. Although the Christmas keepsakes survive in various stages of wear, tear, and disrepair, the memories still sparkle.
When I hold a little wooden truck ornament, for example, I can see our youngest son as a toddler, lying under the Christmas tree, rolling the truck back and forth on the floor. The ornament was still attached to a tree branch, so he was also pulling that branch down almost to the floor, too.
A still beautiful bright red glittering egg-shaped ornament brings back memories of our oldest son proudly sharing exactly how he successfully blew the raw egg out a tiny hole and kept the egg shell intact for decorating.
Daughters-in-law have added to our memories, too, with now treasured ornaments. And as I “undecorated” the tree last year, I discovered tiny Lego Clone Wars soldiers from the Star Wars’ series, left behind from grandsons' intergalactic battles.
Last year’s decorating chaos was priceless. This year our youngest grand is an active 18 months old. We’ll see how that works!