Christmas Ornaments Upon the Tree & Their Roots and Reflections Within Us
In November 2021, I posted about the first Christmas after our daughter and family moved from Los Angeles, about four years earlier. (See RESOURCE SECTION at end of post.) When they moved – unfortunate and sad for us, but of course understandable – they took our five grandchildren, all born in Hollywood, including our two grandsons, who after Thanksgiving dinner at our house and a trip to a theater for a movie and popcorn afterwards, stayed overnight with us to help decorate the house for Christmas, including setting up our artificial tree and helping to decorate it.
After they moved away, my wife and I carefully hauled the tree down from the upper garage storage area and decorated the tree ourselves, a time mixed with the happy memories of our grandsons being with us, and the more subdued quiet time of my wife and I together alone, Christmas music in the background, quiet talk of Christmases past upon our lips, my words spoken between sips of a hot cup of tea.
This year was different still. We had a lot to do to decorate and get the house ready for the mid-December visit of my oldest granddaughter- one of those who left California – and her husband and our very first great-grandchild, a beautiful little boy then seven months old. Since it was already just about three days before they arrived, we hurriedly set up the tree and with still much decorating to do in the house, I took on as a solo task, decorating the tree – a quiet time, still with Christmas music, a time of memories and emotions and quiet smiles and relived sorrows – all resonating deeply within, all memories as if from a Charles Dickens Christmas movie, depicting and intertwining every living current action and thought, with visions from the past, and a few thoughts and hopes for Christmases still to come.
So, from the cabinets in the garage, I hauled all the big green and red plastic bins we had, all full of Christmas items – wreaths, nativity sets, blankets, snow globes, stockings for the fireplace hearth, figurines, tree ornaments, and multiple strands of Christmas lights to be arrayed everywhere. And I opened them all till I finally found the tree ornaments, packed away neatly for the most part – my work – scattered among four of the bins.
I then began opening smaller cardboard boxes of various sizes, and after a while, I had boxes of ornaments on the family room carpet near the tree, which was already festooned with multiple strands of small brilliant multi-colored lights, a sight already filled with thoughts of Christmas past.
And I then arrayed for selection a large variety of ornaments in rows on the table – favorite wooden ornaments, special ornaments that family and friends gave us over the years – some friends already gone – ornaments that my wife made, the beautiful glass ornaments of London landmarks – Big Ben, a guard from Buckingham Palace, a red double decker bus – reminding me of my many trips to London to visit aunts and uncles, and cousins and my mom’s maid of honor who lived into her 90’s.
I then started hanging ornaments on the tree – high and low and in-between – and the stories within or associated with the ornaments, from long past and more recent, joyful and fun, others wrapped in layers of sadness and deepening thought, began to emerge…
There were the two glass ornaments of a squirrel holding an acorn – both beautiful, I’ll admit – gifts over a couple of Christmases from one of my sisters who knew I had a much less charitable attitude towards these cutely clothed varmints who raided my apricot trees in the summer and my citrus trees in the winter and spring – the sister who died a few years back from cancer without ever being married, without children, at the end, still loving the last man in her life who betrayed her.
When the cancer appeared within her, I was glad I was already retired and able to take her to her chemo sessions and help her through the alternate weeks of infusions and feeling crummy and weak, and the weeks in-between the infusions of a somewhat better quality of life and energy, those weeks though always under the shadow of the following week’s infusion – truly a bumpy and, at a times, a difficult learning curve for both of us.
About a month after she died – this was during the pandemic – when our other siblings and I gathered at her condo – then up for sale – to divide her many holiday decorations. I chose the Christmas tablecloths and runners – of a much better quality and beauty than any we had – which now for the first time, we spread throughout the house – beautiful but sad to a degree, but a quiet sad, for those memories of our times together during her five year battle with cancer, were now alive again and welcomed within our home as we prepared to welcome our first great-grandchild to our home, a huge blessing and joy not achieved or enjoyed by everyone.
When we only had one daughter, my wife learned to make dough art ornaments in anticipation of a holiday boutique – happy plump angels, Sesame Street characters – the cookie monster, etc. – and a particular favorite of mine which we have to this day – a photo of our firstborn, about one, surrounded by a green and red dough art Christmas wreath.
And a very vivid Christmas memory of my firstborn was when we were in our smaller first house when she was one year old and already walking. Her grandparents were visiting us for Christmas and on Christmas Eve as she was trying to pull off an ornament from the tree, she brought the entire tree down upon herself – her little head sticking out from among the Christmas tree branches – shocked and stunned and about to wail, because when I rushed from the kitchen where I was beginning to cook, I saw what happened, and called out her name. And as her wail began, her grandmother rushed into the living room because of the commotion, and whisked her away, now in full wail, to save her – all of which I thought was absolutely hysterical.
Now at this Christmas, in addition to the falling Christmas tree, there was another “memorable” event. For Christmas Eve dinner I had decided to make an Italian fish stew because for Christmas, we were going over to my parent’s house for a traditional turkey dinner.
Now the recipe called for wine but did not designate which kind, so going to the market, I bought burgundy like my dad used with herbs and spices and a bay leaf to marinate chuck steaks overnight to barbecue the next day – what did I know about wines? So, I meticulously followed the recipe and when it was finished and hot and ready to eat, I had to go awaken my in-laws from a nap to tell them that dinner was ready – the good news – but also that the white fish had turned purple – the really, really, bad news.
Much later, when my youngest daughter started college on the East Coast, we would land in New York and then drive her and all her boxes to the university. After a few days there, my wife and I returned to New York for a few more days of sight-seeing – our first stop the ruins of the Twin Towers which were still smoldering.
With that visit, we started visiting New York City at least twice a year during our trips to the university to see our daughter, for being in New York was something I had also wanted to do since I was eleven when I saw photos of New York City in the National Geographic magazine and I was absolutely fascinated by such an unbelievable place. I took the magazine to my parents who were both in our narrow kitchen and I showed them the photos and asked if we could move there and they both glanced at the photos and together in unison just said “No!”. The subject was not even open for discussion!
So, I first then eventually made it to NYC when I was forty-four. I had been recruited to travel to DC for a six-week detail working on training materials during the summer, and I took my entire family with me, and we drove cross country to DC – a unique and wonderful journey in and of itself. Now I loved working in DC, for me it was always just like a vacation. And my family – wife and three daughters – toured DC and the close environs and went to all the museums and landmarks in DC during the day while I was at work.
After my detail in DC was over, I took annual leave and we visited cities and places on the East Coast and in Canada, and New York City was number one on my places to hit! My favorite photo of our time in NYC was all of us taken from Liberty Island with the Twin Towers in the background – a photo which in less than ten years would for me become melancholy and sad.
When my wife and I started visiting New York more regularly, I discovered the Met – wow – and bought beautiful glass Christmas tree ornaments of the Empire State Building, the Flatiron, the Statue of Liberty, and the Chrysler building. And this year, again I put those ornaments upon the tree.
But this year, I could not locate the ornament which for me was the most significant, meaningful, and deeply moving and sad of all the couple of hundred Christmas ornaments we have acquired over the years. This one was ceramic of a little boy probably about two or so smiling with the ornament hook attached to the back of his shirt so that his shirt was pulled up in the back with his knees bent so that he tangled from the tree as a happy little boy – as I remember it – as I just did not have enough time to go through all the boxes to find it before I had to finish with the tree, as our seven-month old great-grandson was soon to arrive for a week’s visit with his parents.
I found and bought the ornament probably within the first three years after the death of
our infant son, and I had always hung it high on the tree where I could always see the happy, smiling little boy. I believe I bought it in a Hallmark store, because one thing I did privately all by myself for the first three birthdays of my son, was that I would go to the card section of the Hallmark store and select a birthday card for him – for a one-year-old, then for a two-year-old, and the last one when he would have been three.
It was an activity with sorrow, yes, but better, it was just a quiet shopping time that looking back on it, helped me cope with and give more reality to my loss in a private and contemplative way, and helped me to quietly, and gently, and deeply, put my son – his name is Jarrett – to rest within me. This was comforting, there was comfort in those times.
I remember after I had selected the card for his third birthday, when I put it back on the display rack – for I never bought the cards – there was a deep peace, a release, as if I had accomplished and finished a task, necessary and deep, for that was the last year I ever had the need or thought of looking for a birthday card for my son – who, in the hospital, a couple of hours or so before he died with all the monitors attached to him, I had gone to the clear plastic crib he was in, and as his father I had gently kissed him, which seemed to give him peace as he seemed less distressed, and when later I held him in my arms as he died and left us, I kissed him again.
And I had wanted to find the ornament this year, because I had wanted to show it to my granddaughter who was here with our great-grandson, to tell her – as I have already told my wife and others – that I wanted to make sure her second brother, my second grandson, who carried my son’s name as his middle name, would receive the ornament when I was gone, though knowing me, I would probably gift it to him while I was still alive – part of my anticipated finding homes for the things that I treasure.
And as I write this, as I finish this section, I wish I had bought the cards that I picked out for my son, so that they would be among my treasures. But being a writer with multiple creative and imaginary abilities, in my heart and soul, I will just put the three cards and their colorful envelopes in the heart-sheltered curio cabinet within me which houses and displays other treasures, real physical treasures, but now gone and irreplaceable and never to be seen again.
***
Parting Thoughts
This posting displays only a few stories among possibly a myriad of other stories within me, for such an infinity of stories are in all of us, fashioning the billions of us into unique individuals, like fingerprints, no two souls alike.
And the stories of goodness and kindness, with the love and grace of God, becomes the blood of life coursing through our souls – making us truly human, connecting us all, and drawing us ever closer to God, as is befitting humankind created in the image and likeness of God.
And with our image and likeness bearing, we have the God-given birthright of knowing and loving Him with our whole heart, mind and soul – the Creator God, creator of Heaven and Earth, the God who has revealed Himself as Love – who has also taught us the path of joy of loving our neighbor as ourself, those near and far, so that we as individuals may be united together to share in the eternal life and love of God forever.
But if we have lived a life of rejecting the grace and presence of God, of distaining and dismissing, or ignoring or harming, or oppressing and treating without justice, others in our life, whether there for a time or those just coming across our view, are all attacks upon our neighbor and the image of God within them. Then all the stories and paths that we alone have created within us, become a life breath of hate, and river of death, coursing through our souls, forming us into the likeness of something other and totally different than the God of love who has created us.
And any attack on the image of God within another, is a fearful thing and subject to a deep and lasting judgment. Why do those who attack and mar the image of God do not understand and fear this?
***
Resource Section
***
Links to Specific Internal Subsections in Website
To View another Christmas related post, Memories of Christmas Trees, the Help of Grandsons, please use the link below.
To View another Christmas related post, Yet in Thy Dark Streets Shineth, please use the link below.
To view all the Family Non-Fiction postings, please use the link below.
Family Non-Fiction – Writing In The Shade Of Trees
To view all posts in the Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces, please use the link below.
Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces – Writing In The Shade Of Trees
***
0 Comments