It’s been family tradition to put up the tree during the Thanksgiving holiday for as long as I can remember. Within the last several years, Mom and I have established a second tradition: ritual apology.
That’s what it sort of feels like, anyway. Every year, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, Mom will take the opportunity during phone conversations to remind me that the holiday is approaching; and ask me whether we’re still going to put the tree up again this year. Do I still want to go to the trouble? Every year, I tell her again that it’s fine with me. Would she rather I not–? No, no; by all means…
Somehow, we reassure each other that the practice is still acceptable, and the tree is brought out for another year. I will be doing the actual decorating myself, which may be why Mom feels the need to repeatedly solicit my approval of the practice. She can no longer stand comfortably for any amount of time, so her contribution is mostly in a supervisory capacity.
It is, I believe, my fifth Christmas tree, not counting the live ones that Mom and Dad bought for the first few years after my birth, and which I have no memory of. The first tree I recall clearly was a six-footer, branches made entirely of tinsel; huge and bright and gaudy and horrible and alien and utterly wonderful. I remember discreetly plucking tinsel ‘needles’ from the lower branches one by one and holding them against the hot colored bulbs of the outdoor porch lights, watching fascinated as the tinsel strips blackened and melted away from the heat.
This one is a respectable 4 1/2-footer, artificial Norfolk Spruce, now about twelve years old, much the worse for wear. The long box is shoved under an air conditioning duct near the attic trapdoor; the cardboard is heavily taped to maintain some semblance of integrity as a container. I drag it out and carry it to the living room; as always, the tree will be placed in the front window, atop a battered century-old steamer trunk containing three generations of family quilts and linens. The cheap tree stand is screwed together and draped with a red felt skirt, to which tiny crumbs of spray flocking from the previous tree still stubbornly adhere.
Many of the branches are coming apart, and have to be carefully propped against each other to maintain their overall shape as the tree is assembled. The plastic fastenings that hold the branches to the trunk have cracked in places, and have been reinforced with multiple layers of duct tape. When the tree is finally assembled, there is a particularly egregious bald spot on one side where the duct tape is clearly visible. That side is turned toward the front window; experience has proven that the tape will not be obvious when viewed from outside. This year, strangely, I notice that the plastic branches have tiny brown needles woven among the green. I am sure that I have never noticed this before.
Four cardboard boxes contain ornaments; like the tree box, they have split from age and have been repeatedly bound with packing tape. The sides of each bear identifying scrawls and inscriptions in heavy magic marker (XMAS BULBS + LIGHTS [KEEP]; XMAS '96-- YES!), many of which have been struck through or otherwise amended. These four boxes contain the winnowed-down selection of decorations that are still used. Somewhere in the recesses of the attic are the other boxes, probably twice again as many, full of all the Christmas traditions that have fallen by the wayside: stockings, outdoor lights, vinyl inflatable Santas, strings of electric icicles, wreaths and garlands of plastic mistletoe.
Somewhere up there is a tall, brightly illustrated paperback book, The Night Before Christmas (or, A Visit From Saint Nicholas), with a bundle of loose papers tucked between its covers-- some neatly typed on an IBM Selectric, some written with smudged ballpoint pen in a shaky, prematurely infirm hand. When my father was still alive, we had a strange family ritual. Every Christmas Eve, we would gather around the kitchen table with that book, and create a fresh parody of The Night Before Christmas. Then my brother and I would listen, roaring and giggling, as Dad read out the entire finished work aloud. That was our Christmas Eve.
Once again, I sort through the decorations; we don’t even use the entire contents of these four boxes, not anymore. Still, there are certain things that remain indispensible. Not all of it goes on the tree by any means; though the elaborate outdoor lights and miniature train displays are forever in the past now, there are a few decorations which have their designated places around the house. Santa Mouse, a smiling vinyl figurine in a felt Santa suit which I believe was acquired as a bank promotional giveaway, goes on the coffee table as always. The Peter Pan-like elf hugging his knees the ball of plastic mistletoe gets hung in the foyer. This year I relent and also set out his three compatriots perched in their wicker sleigh. A family of three Bakelite deer-- not precisely Christmas, but somehow incorporated into the proceedings nonetheless-- are arranged atop the china cabinet. The buck’s broken left antler, epoxied back into place by Dad decades ago, continues to hold firm. We have a choice of Nativity scenes for the top of the dry bar; I finally decide on the plastic vignette scavenged from a broken music box, all the figures and animals affixed securely to their heavy plastic disc for eternity. A Santa mug with a little three-mouse music combo inside goes on one end of the bookshelf, the ceramic cherubim-boat candleholder on the other. The Christmas Duck, laden with tiny ornaments, is perched in the center of the dinner table. I note ruefully that the beak of the Christmas Duck is starting to shed its garland of plastic holly yet again, despite multiple applications of craft glue.
Back to the tree. There is only one string of lights; the shorter one burned out a couple years back. I untangle it carefully and plug it in, and am concerned by the number of dead bulbs. Maybe I should run down to the drugstore and grab another package? It would be the first newly purchased Christmas decoration in years, possibly a decade. I broach the idea to Mom; we decide to see how this string looks on the tree first.
Carefully I wind the lights around the bare, sagging branches, keeping one eye on the tree’s reflection in the front window, occasionally glancing into the mirror above the couch. I compensate as best I can for the burned-out bulbs, weaving the string back upon itself and distributing the lights as evenly as possible. At last I step back to evaluate my work. The tree looks almost comically horrible; a skeletal assemblage of artifical branches held together with duct tape, wound around with a tangle of wires. But the lights appear more or less even in their distribution.
There are several packages of glass bulbs, yellow, red and blue; really far too many for a tree this size. The boxes still bear their price tags, revealing that they were bargain-priced thirty years ago, purchased from thrift store chains that no longer exist. Many have colors that are flaking, but many still do not. I select more or less at random, based mainly on whether the bulb still has an accompanying wire hook attached; this year yellow predominates.
Next, a somewhat unconventional addition: Mardi Gras beads. Several years ago a neighbor acquired a hugely unreasonable quantity of beads from the local pirate festival, and we had the bright idea to incorporate them into our Christmas display. Now I drape shiny multicolored strings of beads across the branches, around the lights, camouflaging the bare and broken areas. Metallic gold and silver beads, electric red and purple and green and teal; improbably shaped beads, dice-shaped beads, strung like popcorn, like cranberries. The tree begins to assume a vaguely festive character.
I set the angel into place and plug it in. Everything seems to be in working order. It has a little plastic disc that gives the illusion of a halo; not bad-looking at all, for the money. It is my third angel, this one purchased at Walgreens; the previous two are no doubt still at peace in the attic. The last angel (which was also originally a holiday music box, as it happens) was a bit too big for this tree, hence the replacement.
On to the ornaments proper, a hodgepodge assortment accreted over four generations of American Christmas. Many are handmade or otherwise personalized. Here are a series of ceramic ornaments given by my godmother to my brother and me; mass-produced but hand-painted in lively craft acrylic that still looks fresh and wet after thirty years. A dancing snowman; a mouse in a Santa suit; a mouse sleeping in a Christmas stocking; a mouse asleep in a walnut shell; a mouse asleep in a matchbox. Two tiny flowerpot bells, mine depicting a nutcracker soldier, my brother’s depicting a Smurf. Each one carefully dated: “From Bonnie, for Christmas '78,” “For Christmas 1979 from BW,” “Christmas 1980 With Love.” After my family moved away and my Dad died, there was some sort of feud and we lost touch with her. I don’t even know if she is still alive.
I open a flat white box (United States Catheter and Instrument Corporation, Glens Falls, NY), and more ornaments are chosen. A variety of cheap plastic ‘stained-glass’-style ornaments featuring the Peanuts characters. A little pair of enamel-painted, chesspiece-like wood figures intended to represent Santa Claus and bespectacled wife. Mrs. Claus’ string hairdo is now unraveling, while Santa never had a beard, which I never did understand as a kid. Ornaments made by Mom from holiday greeting cards and Dad’s used flashbulbs.
A flimsy shoebox contains relics from my grandparents’ holiday collection: fantastic, almost science-fictional blown glass Art Deco-style bulbs, probably from the 1930s. A cookie tin contains cheap string-lace snowflakes from Sears, probably some of the most recent additions to the entire collection. I remember buying these things myself. As always, they are hung around the bottom of the tree to fill up space.
A chicken ornament made from a tiny gourd, purchased for Mom when I devised my plan to pad out my Christmas gifts to her by simply including a variety of chicken-themed items. She’s got quite a collection by now, and actually seems to anticipate the chicken gifts now. What have I done?
Here are personalized ornaments of stamped brass from some department store catalog, etched with my name and my brother’s, Mom and Dad’s, Grandpa and Grandma’s. Now Mom and I are the only ones left. I hang a few, here and there, mixing the living and the dead at random. Each box of ornaments contains memories of death.
Here is a little stuffed ornament made of green felt, decorated with tiny sewn-on stars of all colors. There is a woven inscription: my initials and birthday. This little ornament was made for me by my great-grandmother, to celebrate my first Christmas.
Here are two small ornaments, made of lacquered pecans strung on twists of wire, their aged surfaces tacky with leaking resin. They are almost comical in their crudity. One has painted on it in white paint the barely legible name: “DING.” This is short for Isaac Dingleberry, my grandfather’s dog back when Grandpa was stationed in Norfolk during WWII. Ding became a ship’s mascot, and when the Captain retired after the war, Grandpa let him adopt Ding. Somewhere in the attic there’s a photo album that contains pictures of my Mom as a baby playing with that dog.
The other pecan also has a name on it, as well as a date that has been rendered illegible by the sweating lacquer. It’s difficult to be certain, but the name might be “LELAND.” Mom has no idea who this might have been. There is no longer anybody alive who would know.
Someday Mom will also be gone, and there will be no more reason for Christmases. No one will be there to remind me about the tree; no one will care. Then one day I’ll be gone too, and all this stuff will magically turn into boxes of trash. No one else is left to pass it on to. It will have no meaning anymore to anyone. There will be no more generations.
No one will want to keep that little green felt ornament. No one will want to touch disgusting sticky old pecans. It will all instantly become a pile of garbage. No one will even bother to look at any of it. All of it will be thrown away.
Eventually Mom comes in and asks me if I’m almost done. Everything seems to be in order; all the branches seem to have a bulb or a significant ornament. I step back and switch on the lights again.
And once again the miracle happens. The tree is beautiful. Somehow, that old, bare tree has vanished. It is impossible that this could be the same tree. Now, nothing is broken; everything has somehow become new again. Golden with light, warm green boughs laden thick with memories and wonder.
Mom points out a few spots where the lights still need adjusting; I carefully oblige. And then it’s perfect. And it’s Christmas.