Cherished

When the kids were still babies, I dreamed of the ultimate, family Christmas. We would select the prettiest tree together. It didn’t matter from where—the Wisconsin land, the Rotary Club lot, or the hardware store. We’d haul it home and spend the night decorating, while drinking hot chocolate and listening to Bing Crosby sing about a white Christmas. The fireplace would crackle and occasionally pop, my gingerbread cookies would have the perfect snap, the children would squabble over who would place the star on the tip of the tree…

…it never happened that way.

In reality, the kids got bored, my dear husband isn’t interested in decorating anything, and I’m not that great of a baker.

Now, some twenty-odd years later, I’ve settled into the solitary Christmas tradition I’ve curated. Usually, someone in the family does help me purchase the tree and put it in the stand, but the collaboration ends there. The rest is up to me. I string the lights, hang the ornaments, and top it off with garland, sometimes even tinsel. It’s relaxing, almost meditative, circling round the boughs as if walking a labyrinth. My tree-festooning varies from year to year. Sometimes I go glitzy, sometimes homespun, but one ornament is a constant. It’s a very simple affair, handmade by my mother.

Mom’s hummingbird is fashioned from half of a dried milkweed pod, a little paint, a length of white sewing thread, and my mother’s immeasurable creativity and thrift. When I hook this humble ornament amidst glittery orbs and teardrops of glass, I see Mom with her dime-store readers, painting. Maybe she hummed while she worked, a cigarette burning in the ashtray within easy reach, alongside a cup of coffee or can of beer, depending on which side of noon it was.

Embraced by the scent of pine, for a moment or two, my mother is beside me, dressed in the powder blue sweater she favored with embroidered white snowflakes. I see her eyes crinkle with a smile, her busy hands veined and spotted with age, dipping and pulling the brush. But mostly, I feel what this time of year is supposed to be all about. I feel her love.

When I’ve primped and sometimes even pruned my tree to perfection, I plug in the lights to admire my handiwork. As my eyes flit from bauble to bauble, they always land in the same place…the hummingbird, and I begin to dream all over again—of Christmases to come. The fireplace pops and crackles, Bing Crosby croons, my gingerbread cookie snaps like a whip, and adorable grandchildren dance around old Tannenbaum. And that’s when I have the realization that my tree-trimming really isn’t that solitary after all. Indeed, it is accompanied by memories earned, dreams conjured, and hope eternal.