My family's Christmas tree has quite a story. You see when I was a very small girl we were moving from one state to another. Along the way a box fell off the trailer. My parents went back to try and find it, but they could not find it. When they arrived and unpacked nothing was found to be missing so they figured it must have been a figment of their imagination. That is in till Christmas time. When they went to set up their artificial tree they found the top of the tree, and the bottom of the tree but no middle. The middle of the tree was lost on some freeway. What did they do? Go buy a new tree? Use a real tree? Nope! I don't know how new trees work but my parents is a sturdy pole with holes for very sturdy branches. Every year the branches are completely removed, which means there are ways to improvise. They taped the poles for the bottom and top of the tree together. Then with some creative shaping of the branches (bending to fill holes) it comes out to a decent tree. I'm not saying Martha Stewart would want it in her house but its a respectable tree. Once everything is on it, its very beautiful. My parents have used this tree every since I was little, perhaps for sometime before then. And I love this tree,i really do. For a short period when I was in middle school I was a bit 'embarrassed' by our crazy tree (even though you cant tell with everything on it, no ones knows in less we tell them!) but as I got older I realized how wonderful and unique it is. Every year my mom threatens to buy a new one, but secretly I think she loves it as much as I do. Besides there would be a riot. OK so maybe just one angry grown daughter but who wants that?
As for the ornaments themselves they have been carefully collected over the years. Every year at Christmas time my mom would buy me an ornament. Its fun to look back on them and see what ugly things I liked as a child lol. We started buying one on each vacation as well. The tree is full of memories! We have tree decorating traditions as well. There is the pink bell that we have to argue over as to who's ornament it is. (MINE by the way!) The ornaments I don't like that I hang in the back, and she moves to the front. The ugly but oh so beloved (by me) mushroom ornament house ornament with two little mice tenants (not real ones) that I look for the whole time we're hanging ornaments. The bronco tree ornament that will make us cry, my grandmother had a whole tree full of them and it makes us miss her. The random ornaments I've never seen that she picks up, and has to answer 'whats this???' The not so cute ornaments I made us a child that my mom smiles at to this day. The tinsel fight. But most of all its a day mom and I cherish as we remember old memories and create new ones.
To anyone else it might be an ugly old tree. But to me its more beautiful then any designer tree. That misshapen, duct taped, middle less tree holds so much more then a few Christmas baubles. It holds a lifetime of love.
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