The holiday season is upon us. It seems the year has passed in a blur, with seasons flying by. Can it really be nearing winter with Christmas just three weeks away?
The Christmas trees in stores and public places are beautiful and I’m quite tempted to want a “designer” tree with all the color coordinated ornaments. I look at the collections of ornaments for sale and pick some up, then replace them as I remember my ornaments.
They may not match, they may be odd shapes and sizes and colors, but they each tell a story.
There’s the construction paper star with a photograph of my eldest daughter bordered with glitter. There are popsicle stick ornaments.
There are many ornaments of baby’s first Christmas - from 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998 and 2001.
There are special ornaments from each year commemorating various events or trips. There are the girlie ornaments for each of my daughters and there are the sports-theme and huntingtheme ornaments for the boys.
Some ornaments havephotographs of young children, now adults and parents themselves.
There are ornaments from my own childhood passed on to me from my mother.
There are the miniature wooden ornaments made by a dear friend, “Granny” and her husband, “Grampy.” Although they weren’t our grandparents, they were close neighbors and close friends of my parents.
“Granny” was from New England and didn’t like the Southern tradition of calling an adult “aunt” so we selected a unique name just for her. And all these many years later, it stuck. “Grampy” has since passed on, and “Granny” lives far away now, but their memory and the memory of many events with them - homemade donuts, bee keeping, lace making - live on whenever I see one of the ornaments they made.
My tree is not a designer tree, but it is a memorial, a testimony, a scrap book of sorts.
I remember a specialChristmas tree trimming event from the mid-1960s. I was the eldest of three children and my mother allowed me to stay up and help her play Santa. We assembled a train track for an electric train. Oh, we were meticulous. We strung black sewing thread along little utility poles simulating telephone lines. We set up the train and ran it around the track for practice. My younger brothers were asleep. We took a short break and went into the kitchen for milk and cookies and heard a crash!
Returning to the living room, we found that my kitten had climbed the tree causing it to topple over, breaking ornaments and covering the track, ruining the delicate “telephone lines.” We cleaned up the mess and reassembled the train track, redecorated the tree, shared the cookies and then off to bed I went. Funny, it seems as though it was very late at night, but now, as an adult, I realize it could have only been 8 o’clock. But it was a special treat to stay up “late.”
In 1975, my parents took my brothers and me to Williamsburg, Va., for Christmas and then on to Washington, D.C., for New Year’s. I’ve always loved history and wasdelighted with the sights and lessons learned from that trip. Partially inspired by the historic Christmas trees at Williamsburg, the next year, my brothers and I surprised our parents with a special tree.
For most of my childhood, we had “real” trees. I love the smell of the pines and firs.
But, then, during my teen years, we had an artificial tree. My step-father preferred an artificial tree for fear of fire and so, for several years we had an artificial tree.
But, this year, my brothers and I purchased a “real” tree (not artificial) and spent the better part of a day making sugar cookie Christmas tree ornaments, stringing cranberries and popcorn and making a paper chain garland. That was a special tree - everything on it was handmade by my brothers and me.
As much as I admire the designer trees, I think I’ll continue with my tree of mismatched ornaments.
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Editor’s note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County, chosen the best small weekly newspaper in Arkansas three years in a row.
Opinion, Pages 4 on 12/05/2012