Packing Up Christmas Memories

This year, more than any other, it was very difficult for me to pack up the Christmas decorations and I didn’t really understand why until I started to take the ornaments off the tree.

The reasons include: this being the first year I’ve had to do it alone for a long time, everything was in storage last year, so I missed it, my family didn’t share it with me this year, but most of all, I don’t like packing away all those sweet memories.

When I’m gone the things in that box which hung on our tree will only be trinkets but to me they are representations of the love in my life.

My first love is my Creator and Christmas wraps up so much of that joy.  My second great love is my children and while they no longer need me, the sweetness of their laughter and bright-eyed wonder that was always so intense at Christmas lives in the ornaments on the tree.  Even some of the pain lives in those ornaments but because they are hung on an evergreen there is a representation of eternal hope.

We had a house fire on December 29, 1983 and all the ornaments we had before that were lost.  There were several I had from my childhood which I cherished.  The year after the fire I began a tradition.  Each Christmas Eve each of the children opened a new ornament.  It was the one gift they could open ahead of time.

Sometimes the ornaments were unique Hallmark ornaments.  Some years, when funds were tight, they got things that were home made.  One year it was crocheted angels and snowflakes.  Most of the time they were things that represented what was going on their lives.  Christie got music ornaments and Gayle got ballerinas.  Gayle also got things with mice on them because Mouse was her nickname.  One year when she was involved with Little Theatre and got the lead in the Wizard of Oz, they all got ornaments that had to do with the show.  Bry got the Tin Man and Gayle got the Lion because she loved him so much.

About the time we became just the four of us when their Dad left the kids started their own tradition and began to give me ornaments too.  I have some amazing ones.  Christie sent from Vancouver, some old glass ones that looked like some of the ones from my Mom’s tree that I had lost.  She remembered what they looked like.  They didn’t travel well but I still have one and though someone else might throw it out because it has a piece broken off, I can’t.  It gets carefully wrapped up in tissue and put in a special box.

The ever-present angel we got from the Avon catalogue in 1984 still tops the tree and I still have the box for her.   There are some red apples I bought that the kids used to laugh at because it made it look an apple tree.   I also have the box for the little Santas I bought one year to fill some holes left when Christie moved out and took her ornaments with her.

Now both girls have all their ornaments, but Christie has kept the tradition of getting me one until this year, so the tree is full.  I also have all of Bryan’s ornaments.  My favourite is the little marionette soldier that plugs into a light, so he can march and play his drum.  I think I cry every time I get it untangled and working on the tree.

There are some tears in that box.  I had already purchased Bryan’s ornament the year he died.  I hung it on a tiny tree at his graveside that year and now I have it at home.  A little tin Snow Man with a big smile.  There is also a very special dove which was a gift after Bryan died.  (That story deserves a blog of its own.)

So, there it is.  The box of love which one day will just be a box of ornaments to get rid of.  I wish I could so easily put the memories in a box and store them away for them so future generations could feel the love, joy and even the pain.

For now, they will be gently and lovingly placed in their special space. With hope in my heart I look forward to many more years to enjoy the sweetness they represent to me.