Welcome Yule!

Christmas arrived abruptly on my street today. It felt like a scene in a Suess/Rockwell/Orwell tale where walking down the street shows happy families trimming trees in window after window. Wreaths appeared on one or two doors. They will appear on many more as soon as the enterprising young Boy Scout who sold to at LEAST four of us on one Sunday afternoon returns with his wares. (Rockwell, I’m telling you.) We’re all just trying to get it done before the Stoneham town Tree Lighting and Trolly Ride to the Zoo Lights. (Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up folks. The Town Council is contemplating a skating rink on the town commons, as soon as they can figure out who will pay for maintenance.)

Anyway, as my Thanksgiving redux involves massive insights like “turkey is tasty” and “pie is good”, and Grey had a medical procedure which is fine and everything’s good. But let’s just say that I really love Dr. Yu – a urologist at Children’s Hospital Boston. Great guy. Top notch doctor. Enough said for the internet.

I figured that for your entertainment, I might talk about a few of the ornaments that adorn our Christmas tree. Our ornament collection started at college graduation, when my parents and his packed up our childhood ornaments for us. In my family, in our senior years we were given leave and budget to recreate the family Christmas tree. I recall I bought some ornaments… but mostly I liked the tree the way it was. After marriage, Adam and I bought a bunch of glass bulbs at the now defunct Ames (many of which bulbs still survive), and had a few nice ones given to us as wedding presents. We’ve continue to add to the collection (in part by stealing them from my mother-in-law). I also like to try to pick up one a year. And of course, we are now adding clay and pipe-cleaner ornaments crafted by my sons.

This is a silver ornament my father’s parents gave me at my birth. (Or, well, one presumes sometime well after my birth, since my birth was in September on another continent. I do not remember the actual giving well.) Each of us had a silver ornament: my sister a reindeer mobile, my brother a teddy bear I think, and myself this snowman. For a significant portion of my life, I believed this ornament – crafted of the precious metal as it was – my single most valuable possession. I was obsessed with the “kid living on their own” concept (a la “Box Car Children” or “My Side of the Mountain”) and this astonishingly valuable piece of silver was often my mental ace-in-the-hole to be pawned off for real estate, or a bucket and seed corn, or moccasins… you know. What the moment needed. I used to really like polishing it. When I got older, I used my trumpet polishing cloth. I think I did that as recently as last year. My grandparents are gone now, but their birth-gift still hangs on my tree in a place of pride (even if I don’t stake my retirement on it).

At some point in his youth, Adam met with a man who had done the origami Christmas tree for the White House. This star was part of that tree, and at the time my husband learned it, few people knew the secret of this fold. Adam has been patient with me since then. I love holographic paper, and the growing collection of origami holographic stars on my tree does nothing but please me. About once a year I’ll find a scrap of particularly pleasing paper, and beg him to make me a star. He usually obliges. Both sides are lovely. Some of these stars are now ten years or more old.

I am not sure if other people use their trees this way, but we store some of our most important – and most painful – memories on our Christmas tree. This ornament is the most important one on the tree. The inscription reads, “Keitha – 1973”. Keitha was Adam’s older sister, born terribly premature, who lived only a few hours. This little angel, holding its little bell, reminds Adam and I (and now our sons), that she was here. That she lived. That she was loved. And that she is missed. I’m not sure if, without this annual reminder, my sons would know they had a little aunt.

I also have an ornament – not quite as perfect – that I first hung on the tree the year I miscarried two.

I wasn’t the only one with special ornaments. This is a baby-ornament of Adam’s. My sister was also a bicentennial baby, and I remember being jealous because it seemed like a big deal to be a bicentennial baby! Adam’s ornament reminds us all of how special he was. How far away it seems now!

I have actually looked for special ornaments for my nieces and nephews when they were born. You know, silver preferably. Enduring design. Engraveable. Seriously – this has been impossible to find. The best I could do was pewter. (I didn’t WANT pewter. I wanted SILVER.) My sons have Swarovski crystal snowflakes from their grandparents, which are lovely. Actually, Grey’s snowflake might be my single favorite ornament on the tree for how it catches the light, but it doesn’t photograph well. I consider it a loss. Look people! I want to buy something expensive? Does no one wish to take my money? Guess not.

So, what are your favorite ornaments? Which are most deeply sentimental to you? Do you have styles of ornaments you particularly like or dislike? (Blown glass? Dinner-plate-sized?) Do you keep your deepest memories shinily on display on your Christmas tree?