When I was growing up, if Santa was able, she was shopping at Goodwill. Even though I knew my mom did her best with limited resources, I often compared my situation to my friends whose Santa was, at the very least, shopping at Target. As if Target Santa wasn’t enough torture, my friends also had big meals, holiday outfits, fancy trees, and presents with all the pieces. Christmas always made me feel a little sad, or a lot. When I gained creative control of Christmas as an adult, it’s not surprising to me that it’s now my favorite time of the year. My family knows I’m making up for lost time, and indulge me with every twinkly light and pretty ornament. I love me some Christmas.
When the girls were toddlers, we had two trees–they had theirs and I had mine. That’s right, I had my own little personal tree of selfishness, meaning I was a selfish mom, meaning I was a bad person. But a happy bad person. My tree had all the breakable ornaments and was in the front living room of forbiddeness. Their tree was in the rowdy-central family room. We went to the tree farm woods to cut theirs down–a special annual outing of fighting over who gets to ride the tree sled on the way to find the tree, impatiently sipping the mouth scorching hot apple cider and blaming someone else, and arguing over who saw that ornament first, stop copying my likes. And yet, even those memories make me Christmas nostalgic.
The girls decorated their tree however they liked. It was always a happy explosion of color, blinking lights in every hue, glops of tinsel everywhere. If they climbed on it, ate it, put a treehouse in it, I just did-not-care. Have at it. The separation of their tree and mine, is how Christmas remained happy. They were not allowed to touch my tree, and I would joke that I didn’t even want them looking at it too long. As they got older, when I started to let them help decorate the mom tree, they saw it as a sacred privilege. And it friggin’ was. Off and on we still have the kid tree, but the mom tree always goes up. These are photos of my big girls putting up the mom tree with such great care, as if it’s still a privilege. Maybe it still is.
Decorating the mom tree is still a special event for the girls, they never ever miss it. They compare exam schedules and set a time they can all be there to do it. They put on certain music, make some special snacks, and savor the process that was forbidden when they were wee. There’s crazy debating and negotiating about concentration of lights, fixing dark spots, which ornaments should be prominent where–it’s a complicated, extended, enjoyable process.
Things you may hear,
“Who put the two ballerinas so close together?”
“Mom, this ornament is hideous, why do we still have it?”
“Cuz it’s MY tree and I like it.” Evil laughter from me, argument over.
This year we retired the broken angel that used to always be on top, and Kier made me a beachy starfish star. I absolutely love it!
The end tada moment!
