Christmas Dove

Despite a lot of help from our friends, it took me the better part of two days to decorate our tree, and truth to tell, I’m not sure it’s finished yet.  It’s not that I’m moving slower (although I am) or that the tree is larger than usual (it’s really not.)  No, it’s the visiting with so many old friends along the way!

Marta’s Bear

The dove, for instance.  She reminds me that she first graced trees in this house during my mother’s childhood more than a century ago.  She remembers all my aunts and uncles when they were just wee tots.  She remembers when the trees were in the parlor and real candles balanced precariously on each branch.

Heidemarie’s Angel

Or how about the tiny red calico bear made by Marta for an Oysterville Christmas forty years ago?  Or the families of accordion-pleated paper angels made so precisely by Heidemarie and carefully brought  from Germany all the way to Oysterville this fall by Tucker’s cousin Manfred?  Or the cardboard bell with colored buttons pasted on it ever-so-carefully by a first grade student — a gift to me, his teacher, more than forty years ago?

The Button Bell

When Charlie’s hand-blown glass horn showed up, I wondered why it was still here in Oysterville.  It had been one of a half dozen or so ornaments from Charlie’s father’s childhood.  When Charlie got a house of his own a number of years ago and began hosting Christmas there every other year, I had given them to him.  I wonder how I missed this one.

And so it goes.  As I remove the protective tissue paper from each treasured memory, there’s a pause while I retell the story — to Nyel if he’s in the room, or to the other ornaments on the tree or, perhaps, to Joan Baez as she sings carols from the CD player.  I hang each one in just the right place, and I can all but hear their sighs of satisfaction.  “Oh!  It’s good to be back!” they seem to say.  And I wonder how I could have contemplated “no tree this year.”  Oh my!