The box with our Christmas tree in it was waiting for me when I arrived home today. Taped up, the size of a football player, it is my assignment for tomorrow to do what "Only God" can do, which is to "make a tree."
I remember when I was little and we would go into the woods and find one that looked as if nobody wanted it, cut it down, and drag it back down the hill. We'd let it sit outside a day or so because Pop always said it "needed to settle," or some such thing. I never could understand that. It looked the same to me when it finally got stuck into the metal tree holder, had one of our white sheets wrapped around the holder, bubble lights in place, and we stood and threw tinsel at it.
We had one little plastic angel we called "Angie the Christmas Tree Angel," from a song back then. The angel was about four inches tall and we poked a hole in the bottom of it so it would stay on the top branch. I had a small plastic snowman ornament that had come with two suckers sticking out of a hole in its side. Suckers long-gone, it hung on the tree with just its hole. I also had a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer ornament the year that song came out. I still have these three precious ornaments, and they hang every year on my Christmas tree, right along with the blue paper bird with net and sequined wings that I made in the second grade. I thought that bird was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and even though it's a bit tattered and worn, each time I hang it on the tree I remember how it felt to be seven and proud of my creation.
One year my mother decided to "go modern," and she went out into the woods and dragged home a dead tree that was not even an evergreen. She spray-painted it white, stuck it into a pot, and hung only blue balls all over it. All four of us sat and looked at it for a couple of weeks, and then right before December 25th, we went back up into the woods, and brought home a little pine tree to hang Rudolph, Angie, and my blue bird on, so we could be "normal."
We had other ornaments and decorations back then. Every year Pop and I would go outside together and hang up Santa's Face somewhere in the front of the house. This is a large brilliantly RED face of Santa that I thought was magnificent. It's in its box in my basement right now. I haven't hung it up since my own kids were little, but I could never part with it.
It's odd to see the evolution of Christmas, now that I am old enough to look back over lots of them. Of course I cannot ever see it again as I did when I was little, but I did try to make my own childrens' Christmases as exciting as I remembered. I loved the whole idea of gifts, both giving and getting.
One year Mom got the idea that we would make marzipan candy gifts for everyone. She set up the ping pong table in the basement, bought a ton of marzipan (almond paste) and food coloring. Then she got cute little leaves that we could use as stems for the marzipan strawberries, apples, pears, and other fruits that we rolled in our hands, and dyed with the food colorings. We must have rolled apples and berries through hundreds of pounds of marzipan before we realized that there was NO WAY we were going to be able to use up all the almond paste that Mom had bought. The house smelled like nuts, and we could hardly stand to lick our fingers, we were so sick of the taste of it.
Then Mom got "creative," with aluminum TV dinner plates! We had a life-time supply of those three-sectioned tins. Instead of strawberries, we produced marzipan Salisbury steaks, marzipan mashed potatoes (with marzipan yellow pats of butter on top), and bright green marzipan peas. A complete meal of marzipan! God only knows to whom we presented these gifts, and today I laugh at the memory, but back then I thought we were giving away priceless pieces of artwork. (You can imagine the discussions of the recipients, I presume.)
I loved to wrap presents when I was a child. One year I bought Mom a very large "crystal" salad bowl and wrapped the bowl, added a helium-filled balloon with four strands of yarn to the top, and presented my gift in the form of a hot-air balloon. The bowl itself was anticlimactic once unwrapped.
Prior to this creative wrapping era, I just WRAPPED everything. We had lots and lots of cheap wrapping paper, and some that I had even made by myself by doing potato printing on shelf paper. I got the notion, very young, that things that were wrapped up were better than things that weren't. So I wrapped anything and everything I could.
Mom's scissors disappeared one year. We heard about it every day for several months. Since she needed them to cut out the fabric to make our clothes, it was a huge loss and inconvenience. On Christmas morning she opened all her "presents" under the tree, and lo' and behold, there were her missing scissors! By then I had forgotten I'd wrapped them.
Our gifts were wonderful. Apparently I had not inherited my love of wrapping from my parents, since NOTHING from Santa was wrapped. When we got up on Christmas morning and ran to the tree, we saw it ALL at once! A display of gifts! Dolls were my favorite, and I would get one every year. Most of them have fallen apart or disappeared, but Poor Pitiful Pearl is still in her original box right under my guest bed, and occasionally I open the box and become a little girl again for a few minutes. In the attic is the metal doll buggy in case I want to take her for a walk. We didn't have a zillion toys like kids do today.
My Aunt Angie, in South Dakota, was a librarian. Every year she would send us a book with an inscription inside. We'd open her book on Christmas Eve and read it. Those books were some of my favorite presents. Why The Chimes Rang will be on my coffee table for readers to enjoy one more time in a day or two. I thank Aunt Angie for the gift of the love of reading that came hidden, unseen, inside those little volumes.
My mother gave me a child-sized fork and spoon that she remembered were her sole Christmas gifts one year when she was a very little girl in Colorado. The spoon has tooth marks all over it, and the fork is worn. She told about her dad putting a piece of paper over his face. It had holes cut out for his eyes, and he chortled, "Ho Ho Ho!" as he presented her with Santa's gifts. Of course she knew it was her daddy, and she was happy with her gift, although a bit unnerved.
Christmases of my past have tender places in my heart: My daughter with a big red bow atop her head.......... my son dressed as a shepherd for a church play.......... admitting under cover of a bed tent one Christmas night to my tearful oldest child that yes, indeed, he was correct about Santa........ "Silent Night" in the snow at midnight with our entire church family.............. an Advent calendar with little chocolates behind each date's window........ cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer........ candy canes and Festivus for the Restofus ice cream. Love.
Draped over one antique clock will be my son's faded red crepe paper hat from his kindergarten elf performance, a glittery halo of my youngest angel, once worn over his impish face, and a paper crown with a gold star from my daughter's angel debut: Tender memories of Christmas with my children.
Tomorrow I will make a tree and hang up Rudolph, my snowman, Angie the angel, and my paper blue bird. I might even hang up the beaming Santa face. Randy has already lit the yard and lamp post. I hope there's still enough little girl left in me to wrap like a crazy person, load the tree with gifts, and feel the joy of Christmas. I will pass on the marzipan.
copyright: K P Gillenwater
