Merry Christmas, Kelly Wills
I bought a Christmas tree yesterday--the first big one I've ever bought. It's 180 cm tall, which is 5.85 feet, for those of us to whom centimeters means nothing at all (I had to look it up--I didn't know either). Not the tallest in the world, but the biggest I could find. It will do. I'm ridiculously excited about it. I can't wait to take it home and fix it up with all the trimmings.....
oops.
I don't have any trimmings. Not one light, not one garland. No ribbons or tree skirt. No star. I can't even find my Bing Crosby Merry Christmas CD. I have one little gold ornament with black bears on it--it says Harlan County, KY, I think. It's my first ornament. I plan to go to a cien pesetas store or to the market in the Plaza Mayor to get decorations, but the thought of it still makes me a little sad. No matter how much I spend on decorations (which won't be much), It can never compare to the tree in my parents' house. It's the most beautiful tree in the world.
Our family has been considering getting a new tree for at least the past decade. The box it was stored in has long ago disintegrated, so now it's just wrapped up in a sheet (often fastened with panty hose tied around it) for most of the year, hanging from bungee cords in the garage. I've always thought it kind of looked like a body hanging up there, but there's my overactive imagination for you. And too much CSI.
But when we put the tree together, it's magical. Shaping it is always a painstaking job, pulling out each individual twig from each branch, making sure that each bough curves like a real tree (rather than sticking straight out in fake tree fashion), enough to look realistic but not so much at the bottom that the tree will be too skinny at the top. And of course, it only can be shaped while listening to Bing Crosby. Next come the lights. Inevitably, at least one string is missing a bulb that has to be sought out, and at least 3 or 4 have been put away improperly and we wonder who on earth went up into the attic and messed up the strings of lights that were in perfectly good shape last MARCH when we put the tree away (another blog subject there, eh?).
The white lights are wrapped around the middle of the tree--as far inside as they will go, followed by strings of colored lights on the middle and outside. This makes the tree look infinitely deep, as if it were its own Narnia-like forest where you could walk in and never come out the other side. Next come the garlands (silver, gold, sometimes red). At this point it's getting late, so we leave the ornaments for the next day, turning out the lights and enjoying our half-done, but still beautiful, work of art.
The next day, with Bing back on (maybe interspersed with Amy Grant's christmas album and Handel's Messiah, but Bing is the standard), we start the ornaments. Here's where the real magic starts. It is scientifically impossible for all those ornaments to fit on that tree. First there are the clear glass balls that go deep into the tree to reflect all the colored lights. After that, we have the colored glass balls--boxes upon boxes upon boxes. The tree is full. But we're just getting started. Now it's time for the fun stuff.
My parents have been married over 30 years, and haven't thrown away an ornament. There are the ones from their first years of mairrage, a few from their childhoods, and my sisters' and my baby ornaments. They're both teachers, so each year the collection is added to by students who either have conscientious parents or who are making a last ditch effort at upping their B+ to an A-. There is the white paper dove that Mrs. Martin gave me in the first grade. There is Kim's popsicle stick sled, painted red. There is the aluminum foil angel that Country Mother (my great-grandmother) made. There is the wooden nativity, the clothespin reindeer and the cuckoo clock. There is the dancing soldier, the red ice cream cone looking thing, and the countless pictures of us as kids. I had really big teeth in the second grade, and wore a purple dress. There is the Star Trek ship where you press a button and Mr. Spock says "Starship to Enterprise...Starship to Enterprise. Spock here. Happy Holidays. Live long, and prosper." There is a tiny bird's nest that rests on top of a branch, and a cat that has "Fluffy" written in marker on the back of it--my grandmother got it for our cat. (Only she called him Fluffy. To the rest of us, he was Fat Boy) Sometimes, to finish it off, we would buy a box of candy canes and hang them from any branches left unadorned. All of these ornaments had their own hierarchy of importance. Kim and I, for years, had staked out which ones were ours to hang, and hanging someone else's ornament was right up there with blasphemy in our family. There are some things you just don't do.
I remember finally being old enough to hang things near the top of the tree when I used the cricket (wooden stool) that Uncle Poppy made, and then finally feeling like a full fledged adult when I didn't even need that help anymore. I was 14. I had arrived.
The house was always quiet the night after the tree was decorated. Usually there would be a Christmas movie on TV or something, and we would turn the lights down in the rest of the house and congregate in the living room around the tree. We never made a plan to do this--I think we all just decided together to take that time and admire our handiwork. There is our family--me, my sisters, my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and now neices and nephews, all represented in one way or another on our tree. The more you look, the more stories you remember. Sure, the tree is a bit busier than ones you would see in "Good Housekeeping," but it's the most beautiful tree in the world. Ever since I was little, I remember being so proud when a visitor would come into the house and start the ooh's and ahh's, touching ornaments and asking the stories behind them.
This will be my first Christmas away from home.
So even though I'm excited about my new tree, having my own tree makes me a little sad. It's like an admittance that I'm an adult, that I have to make my own tree now and start collecting my own ornaments to put on the tree (although, Mama, if you want to send me some of ours, I'll be more than happy to take them off your hands.) I'm only 24. I don't have years of stories to tell for different ornaments. At best I can make the tree beautiful, but it still won't be our tree in Kentucky.
But I do have one ornament with a story. I have my Harlan County black bears ornament that my mom gave me before I came back to Spain. My first real ornament for my first real tree! It's just a little ornament, but it means alot to me, and will have a prominent place on my tree.
I would like to have seen my parents' tree in its first year. Were the ornaments sparse? Was my mom sad that there weren't many stories on it yet? What a difference a couple decades makes.
I hope that in 30 years I will have a tree that's just maybe a little too old, with too many ornaments, so that my tree is full almost to the point of bursting with things from my parents and grandparents, and my own family. I hope that my kids will get excited about paper doves and popsicle stick sleds and clotheshanger reindeer. And then I can point to the Harlan County ornament and say "This was my first ornament."
"And this one next to it? I got that at a market in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain..."
I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
oops.
I don't have any trimmings. Not one light, not one garland. No ribbons or tree skirt. No star. I can't even find my Bing Crosby Merry Christmas CD. I have one little gold ornament with black bears on it--it says Harlan County, KY, I think. It's my first ornament. I plan to go to a cien pesetas store or to the market in the Plaza Mayor to get decorations, but the thought of it still makes me a little sad. No matter how much I spend on decorations (which won't be much), It can never compare to the tree in my parents' house. It's the most beautiful tree in the world.
Our family has been considering getting a new tree for at least the past decade. The box it was stored in has long ago disintegrated, so now it's just wrapped up in a sheet (often fastened with panty hose tied around it) for most of the year, hanging from bungee cords in the garage. I've always thought it kind of looked like a body hanging up there, but there's my overactive imagination for you. And too much CSI.
But when we put the tree together, it's magical. Shaping it is always a painstaking job, pulling out each individual twig from each branch, making sure that each bough curves like a real tree (rather than sticking straight out in fake tree fashion), enough to look realistic but not so much at the bottom that the tree will be too skinny at the top. And of course, it only can be shaped while listening to Bing Crosby. Next come the lights. Inevitably, at least one string is missing a bulb that has to be sought out, and at least 3 or 4 have been put away improperly and we wonder who on earth went up into the attic and messed up the strings of lights that were in perfectly good shape last MARCH when we put the tree away (another blog subject there, eh?).
The white lights are wrapped around the middle of the tree--as far inside as they will go, followed by strings of colored lights on the middle and outside. This makes the tree look infinitely deep, as if it were its own Narnia-like forest where you could walk in and never come out the other side. Next come the garlands (silver, gold, sometimes red). At this point it's getting late, so we leave the ornaments for the next day, turning out the lights and enjoying our half-done, but still beautiful, work of art.
The next day, with Bing back on (maybe interspersed with Amy Grant's christmas album and Handel's Messiah, but Bing is the standard), we start the ornaments. Here's where the real magic starts. It is scientifically impossible for all those ornaments to fit on that tree. First there are the clear glass balls that go deep into the tree to reflect all the colored lights. After that, we have the colored glass balls--boxes upon boxes upon boxes. The tree is full. But we're just getting started. Now it's time for the fun stuff.
My parents have been married over 30 years, and haven't thrown away an ornament. There are the ones from their first years of mairrage, a few from their childhoods, and my sisters' and my baby ornaments. They're both teachers, so each year the collection is added to by students who either have conscientious parents or who are making a last ditch effort at upping their B+ to an A-. There is the white paper dove that Mrs. Martin gave me in the first grade. There is Kim's popsicle stick sled, painted red. There is the aluminum foil angel that Country Mother (my great-grandmother) made. There is the wooden nativity, the clothespin reindeer and the cuckoo clock. There is the dancing soldier, the red ice cream cone looking thing, and the countless pictures of us as kids. I had really big teeth in the second grade, and wore a purple dress. There is the Star Trek ship where you press a button and Mr. Spock says "Starship to Enterprise...Starship to Enterprise. Spock here. Happy Holidays. Live long, and prosper." There is a tiny bird's nest that rests on top of a branch, and a cat that has "Fluffy" written in marker on the back of it--my grandmother got it for our cat. (Only she called him Fluffy. To the rest of us, he was Fat Boy) Sometimes, to finish it off, we would buy a box of candy canes and hang them from any branches left unadorned. All of these ornaments had their own hierarchy of importance. Kim and I, for years, had staked out which ones were ours to hang, and hanging someone else's ornament was right up there with blasphemy in our family. There are some things you just don't do.
I remember finally being old enough to hang things near the top of the tree when I used the cricket (wooden stool) that Uncle Poppy made, and then finally feeling like a full fledged adult when I didn't even need that help anymore. I was 14. I had arrived.
The house was always quiet the night after the tree was decorated. Usually there would be a Christmas movie on TV or something, and we would turn the lights down in the rest of the house and congregate in the living room around the tree. We never made a plan to do this--I think we all just decided together to take that time and admire our handiwork. There is our family--me, my sisters, my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and now neices and nephews, all represented in one way or another on our tree. The more you look, the more stories you remember. Sure, the tree is a bit busier than ones you would see in "Good Housekeeping," but it's the most beautiful tree in the world. Ever since I was little, I remember being so proud when a visitor would come into the house and start the ooh's and ahh's, touching ornaments and asking the stories behind them.
This will be my first Christmas away from home.
So even though I'm excited about my new tree, having my own tree makes me a little sad. It's like an admittance that I'm an adult, that I have to make my own tree now and start collecting my own ornaments to put on the tree (although, Mama, if you want to send me some of ours, I'll be more than happy to take them off your hands.) I'm only 24. I don't have years of stories to tell for different ornaments. At best I can make the tree beautiful, but it still won't be our tree in Kentucky.
But I do have one ornament with a story. I have my Harlan County black bears ornament that my mom gave me before I came back to Spain. My first real ornament for my first real tree! It's just a little ornament, but it means alot to me, and will have a prominent place on my tree.
I would like to have seen my parents' tree in its first year. Were the ornaments sparse? Was my mom sad that there weren't many stories on it yet? What a difference a couple decades makes.
I hope that in 30 years I will have a tree that's just maybe a little too old, with too many ornaments, so that my tree is full almost to the point of bursting with things from my parents and grandparents, and my own family. I hope that my kids will get excited about paper doves and popsicle stick sleds and clotheshanger reindeer. And then I can point to the Harlan County ornament and say "This was my first ornament."
"And this one next to it? I got that at a market in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain..."
I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
posted by kelly_w at 3:31 PM
6 Comments:
this was fun to read kelly, made me think of memories of our family's tree too (since my mom is your mom's sister, you know she can't throw anything away either)... don't worry i almost cried too :)
i'm glad the day before Christmas is the day i officially move back home, and stop being homeless because of the year-long road trip i've been on. i don't know of a way to put a christmas tree in my 6500ci kelty backpack (the one i've called home for so long now).
I am fantastically thrilled that you'll be spending Christmas with us! I hope we make your first "grown-up" Chrismas even more than you are hoping for!
"I want a picture, not a belly itcher"
Ok, maybe not quite appropriate, but seriously, do you think you can finangle a picture to go with this post? It would be great.
Also, I'm sending this to my mom, because this is our tree too - except its a Tim and not a Kim. We even have the clothespin reindeer and red ice cream cone looking thingy (although are lacking the Spaceship Enterprise I must admit).
Our moms gave us all our ornaments when we moved out, if you want we can bring them to Madrid to help fill up your tree (we started with a smaller tree [which now only looks appropriate in the den :)] so one string of lights, a few beads, and our ornaments clutter, i mean fill, it up nicely!) but we'll have to take them back with us.
See you soon!
Well, I got out the moving ornaments and put them on the tree (I wasn't going to, because it's so ridiculously full and I was tired)...the merry-go-round, and the globe with the children from around the world going around it...that one will bring you to mind this year. And yes, the Shuttlecraft. Not starship. Now I have to think of my grandkids. I want that magic there for them, too. Live long, and prosper!
Thanks for the memories, Kelly. I bought my first tree this year. It was such a bittersweet moment opening it up and realizing that this was the first time I had ever decorated a tree without my mother or grandmother. It made me incredibly sad to start decorating it, even if I did have roommates to help me. I'm purposely leaving it bare so mom and I can do some post-Christmas ornament shopping when I go home. (Not only will we catch the tradition of getting the sales, but she can help me pick some out.) It is definetly a passage into adulthood, and a somewhat scary one at that.
Kelly, I originally saw this on Kelly Crull's site. I'm glad you're enjoying your first Christmas in Madrid. :) It reminds me about how each family has its own traditions. And I think that's how everyone does it and am kind of surprised to find they do something different. ;) Feliz Navidad, Paul (Mountainview, fall 03)
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