Inside the magic of Mum's Christmas Tree
One thing I did not absorb from my mother was her love of decorating at Christmas. Since she died in 2003, I’ve stored her little ornamental Christmas tree, the one she displayed in her bay window. My siblings and I dispersed other sentimental holiday bits-and-pieces she’d collected in her lifetime, in spite of my father’s slightly Scroogey, “we don’t need any more of that, Viv” mentality.
The reality of my Christmas decorating
A few nights ago when Hubby was out, I played a Boney M Christmas CD from the 70s’ when my generation boosted our Christmas repertoire by adding Caribbean salsa to traditional carols. I need all the Christmas spirit I can harness this night. My 8-year tradition of displaying my mother’s tree in a corner of my living room eerily brings me closer to her, and Christmas. A metal stand keeps the tree upright as I straighten stiff wire branches, the tips dipped in toxic fake snow. I wrestle two strings of lights, not quite close enough to an outlet to create illumination as effectively as hoped for. My fingers feel as clumsy as my patience with fiddley things, like replacing the plastic reflectors on the miniature light bulbs, and fluffing up red Pointsettia petals on others. I end up with clumps of red too close together, or the reflectors regularly fall off, and I crawl on arthritic knees to find them. The green electrical wires my mother would have deftly hidden show through the gaps in the sparse branches. I give up and turn to the ornaments.
Even the Snowman has a Tree
I swear the ornaments were made by nimble-fingered fairies. The near-invisible gold filament loops for attaching them to the spiky branches are about 3 inches shorter than required. Even when I manage to insert one into the fake greenery, I have to remove it because the thing hangs backwards. My mother would never have left the little snowman facing into the bark, or one-sided patterns of the breakable bulbs hanging askew.
Teeny-tiny train painted by fairy fingers
Boney M is long finished by the time I toss on the last few ornaments. The ones with broken gold threads I throw back in the bag in hopes that a nimble-fingered fairy will visit and fix them. I stand back and assess my tree. It’s at this stage that my mother would have fiddled to balance the placement. I do not. She would have hung each shining thread of tinsel individually, so that the tree shimmered like a hootchie-kootchie dancer’s skirt. Tinsel is out for me. To make the tree my own, I drape on a clunky green, red and gold beaded string, more like a clacking gypsy necklace. I stuff fake greens around the bottom, where my mother would have smoothed out a white cotton batting that she’d nudge into hillocks like a snow-covered landscape (and then make an old-fashioned village with church spires and mirrors for lakes with skaters).
Crumpled but smiling doily Angel
The most difficult part now is topping the tree with a straight face. My mother’s collection of angels that she topped her “real” trees with aren’t part of this setup. I found an embarrassing solution eight years ago. Not embarrassing to me, but to my son. For decades I’d saved an angel he’d made at school when he was seven – and he’s forty now. It’s small, the perfect size to cap the lone branch that forms the top of my mother’s tree. Looking carefully you see where he pencilled, “from Ryan” across the angel’s chest. Who would have thought his doily craft would be so useful to me decades later.
Mum's Magic Tree
When I’m satisfied, I plug in the tree lights and flick off the house lights. That is the magic moment. I transcend time backwards to a child’s wonder at beauty, magnificence and Christmas. By now Michael Buble’s Christmas CD plays Silent Night. I stare at my mother’s tree. These few mesmerizing minutes, stolen from the busiest time of the year, are ours to share.
Copyright © 2011 by Mary E. McIntyre. Reproduction of photographs and full or partial content from Camera Combo blog is permitted only with acknowledgement attributed to author Mary E. McIntyre and the following link: http://cameracombo.wordpress.com
Poignant post, Mary. I love the way you’ve combined words and photos to tell your story, and I’m sure it resonates with many readers — those of us for whom tree ornaments bring back memories of times past and loved ones no longer with us (or simply grown and no longer making us doily-winged angels). Your post also reminded me of something I hadn’t thought of in a long time: when I was a child, my mom didn’t place a red-and-green cloth skirt around the base of the tree, but instead, white tissue paper with sparkles that was mounded to look like Christmas snow. I’ll have to look for some next year. Thank you for bringing this back to me.
It’s tough to follow in our mothers’ footsteps. I can so relate to the half-ass replica of what a mother took such pride in. And I have a felt stocking my stepdaughter made of which she’s mortified, but which her five-year-old son thinks rocks. Lovely post, Mary. Very honest.
A wonderfully told story of Aunt Viv and Christmas time. Thanks Mary.
The bitter sweet memories of nostalgia and the people we love who are no longer with us. Christmas always stirs up love, and grief, and fond recollections of the days that went by us untreasured until now.
Wonderful memories lovingly contained in your mother’s tree! And Ryan’s angel is still looking lovely after all these years. Happy Holidays!