Most of us have a variety of Holiday traditions, anything from continuing to serve the red Jell-O salad at Thanksgiving, maybe the annual photo shoot for the Christmas card, or caroling on a specific night; each tradition marks time, honoring the past and threading a future where all the effort ensuresmeaning.
If I had to choose one of our family’s traditions, it would be decorating the Christmas tree.
This starts with big kudos to my husband, who stoically and patiently puts up the tree, ensuring A is plugged into B and C, followed by my silent prayer of gratitude for the person who invented pre-lighted trees, wondering how many marriages and lives could have been saved if someone thought of it sooner.
We all miss the fresh pine smell of a real tree, the activity of choosing one, singing carols to the tree farm, the hayride through to the forest, cutting it down, untangling lights…
But these days, having adult children in the same room for more than an hour, ornaments unpacked, and beverages waiting morphs the past with the ongoing tradition of decorating the tree.
We bought an enormous tree a few years ago, mainly because there are now 37 years of ornaments, and how can one ornament stay in the box and not make the tree? Since my firstborn, I have purchased, or they have made, an ornament for each year. Years of 3 daughters marking soccer or dance, Santa, candy canes, then flash forward, a blended family, significantevents, graduations, weddings, and babies; even our youngest, who crossed over to heaven in 2013 is represented with a beautiful butterfly ornament.
Some people do ancestry.com and trace their family tree; I can trace my life and my children and grandchildren in our Christmas tree. Our tree is an annual overture of big, beautiful, and sometimes messy lives. There is a paper angel that my oldest made in kindergarten that is looped and ready to hang with the same purple thread. We have noodle angels that are painted white, one with a cracked halo, a big bear wearing tap shoes, my grandson’s handprint making a salt clay Santa, and ornaments from when we hiked through New Zealand. Milestones and memories warm my living room.
One day, the kids will clean out my attic and decide the fate of many of the ornaments.
If it happens to be in the summer, I can almost guarantee everything will be thrown out and hauled off before anyone suffers heat exhaustion. But what I hope is that the Christmas boxes are removed and stored. Take a minute. It took years to collect them—I hope they pause and decide which ones stay and which go to the land of misfit toys. I want them to feel there is more to the ornament than the shabby white beard or the cracked angel. Each represents the stories surrounding the year or the conversations sparked while decorating the tree 20 years later; the memories give the ornament context.
It is the story the ornament prompts. Maybe just one ornament makes it – like the string of bells my dad used to shake outside our windows when I was little and pretend he was Santa, or maybe the tap-dancing bear—perhaps while they hang the ornament, they share the stories with their children or even their grandchildren and know how much they were loved.
Tricia is a writer and Realtor living her best life possible in Peachtree City. Do you have a tradition you would like to share? We would love to hear from you! Share your story about a family tradition and send it to: [email protected]
Congratulations and thank you Tricia. Happy Thanksgiving. – Joe