I’ve probably never seen your Christmas tree, but I’d bet ours was nicer. Here’s why.
My mom and dad were both US Marines. This meant a lot of travel and a lot of casual relationships with few really deep friendships. Every fourteen months or so, we had to move again—usually a thousand miles from wherever we were. After about the third relocation, you start to run into people you knew on the other side of the country, again.
So here’s what Mom did to make our tree the best anyone had ever seen. You know how Christmas tree ornaments are packaged, right? It’s rare to find one in a box, alone. They usually come four- six- or more-to-a-box. Mom would buy something new every year and then trade out all but one with her friends and family.
She’d buy the little aluminum ball decked out as a skiing Santa Claus and put one on our tree, and trade out the other five. From that Christmas onward, decorating the tree and putting away the ornaments at the end of the season was a deeply emotional undertaking, which I guess is kind of the whole point.
We’d put up the tree after Thanksgiving, after deciding on a prominent location in the living room. And out would come the boxes. Lights. Tensile. Ornaments. And she’d reach into the box and retrieve one and place it purposefully on the tree and announce, “This one came from Lela Mae and Al” and she might explain who they were and how they were important to her, relating something about their kids or jobs or pets or just anything, really.
“This one is from Tiny and Carrie” and she’d place the next one. “Tiny” was, of course, a six-foot-two Marine they had served with at three different bases around the country. “He liked to fish and she liked to go to the movies”.
There were dozens of these little vignettes. Most were heart-warming, some were heart-tugging and as time went on an increasing number were tinged with sadness. “This one came from Gary. He was so sweet. He didn’t come back from VietNam…”. I may be remembering it wrong but I think when you died you got a higher place within the tree hierarchy. Our tree very soon became one with no two ornaments alike. Every bulb and ball and hangy-downy thing told a story of some kind. “This one was from Mark’s little girlfriend…” and “This was from Mark’s favorite teacher…” and on and on and on.
We’d turn off the TV if there was nothing good on and just stare into the tree as the stories rattled on. “This was actually an Avon thing…” she’d point to a weird bird cage with a papier mache bird and plenty of room in the bottom for a long-lost bottle of sniff-um.
After several weeks we’d pack them all away and there were sighs and tongue-clucking and other sad noises. But our tree represented the family history. It was tradition. It was geography. It was career advice. It was safety lectures. It was laughter and it was tears.
Our tree was better than yours.
