Last night we did one of my favorite things from the holidays:
decorated the tree and put out Christmas.
We were late in getting this done this year because of the Catastrophic Hot Water Heater Failure
of 2016 and its ensuing mess that took over our lives and my living room for 2
weeks.
Picture the
huge, undecorated tree standing in the corner of the living room, surrounded by
every single thing from three bedrooms and four closets. Yeah. It was as bad as you
are imagining. That’s how we started December.
To be honest,
when it comes time to trim the tree I am usually a bit grinchy about it. Life
is just busy and there
I don’t love it
because of the stuff, I love it it because of the people. I love it because of
the memories attached to almost every piece of that ‘stuff’.
Our tree is not
fancy, in fact it’s rather shabby. It’s full of homemade ornaments made by fat sticky
little fingers. It’s covered in glued paper crafts and salt dough angles with
names written in mirror image by children just learning to write.
Not only is it covered in my family’s memories, it has items from my
grandmother (several boxes of glass balls that are from the 50s) as well as
many Swedish ornaments given to us by Dave’s mom. I have panted burlap pictures
that were Dave’s Swedish grandmothers as well as quilted wall hangings made by
my aunt. I have my childhood stocking and many silly ornaments from recent ornament
exchanges with my side of the family. Once we get started and I see all this ‘stuff’
it makes me happy because attached to each is a memory of someone I love.
All this is made
even sweeter by the fact that the whole family was there to help. Dave and I, the
girls, Gunnar and Kaytlin, and even Bryce and Haleigh were able to come over to
help. That was a treat. It’s so nice when your kids who are grown and on their
own want to come home (and are close enough to do so!). Dave’s mom was also
here. The last several years she has joined in on our Christmas tree trimming.
I think she misses doing this in her own house. It’s fun to have her because
she remembers so many of the ornaments too.
This year our tree trimming party was not
fancy. I was gone working or running errands all day and did not get home until
almost 5. We had store bought pizza and salad for dinner. We didn’t have cider
or hot chocolate or Christmas cookies. There was just no time for that this
year unfortunately. But what I did have was my whole little family in my living
room decorating the tree and being sassy and sarcastic and laughing and joking
and singing to the Christmas music while reminiscing of Christmases past while
we prepared for this next coming Christmas.
I know these
days are fleeting. The kids will all grow up and move out, get married, and
start their own families with their own traditions. I won’t always have every
one of them able to come and participate on our family traditions and I know
this. I think that is why nights like last night are so special.
I couldn’t love
my shabbily decorated Christmas tree any more, because of the hands that put it
up and the memories hanging on it.
