Christmas Angel, 1942

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday and when I say “we” I mean that it took four of us – Nyel and me plus Bradley and Tom.  Nyel and I have always managed alone before but this year, even though the tree is fully three feet shorter than usual, we could not manage the last bit of lifting onto a low table.  In fact, therein lay the problem.

Usually our eleven-foot tree can be eased into its stand and ‘Bob’s your uncle!’  But this year, an eight-and-a-half-footer was the tallest we could get.  Bradley and Tom to the rescue!  Once Nyel and I got it straightened and rotated so its best side was forward, Nyel proceeded stringing lights (with only one trip to Jack’s for an additional string) and I began opening boxes.  They are the cardboard cartons that live in our back forty, labeled and re-labeled over the years – “Christmas Ornaments, No Balls;” “Christmas Ornaments, Mostly Balls;” “Wind-up Toys;” and so forth.

Pinocchio

Opening those boxes and displaying their contents is one of the great pleasures of the Season.  As I unwrap the tissue paper to reveal each treasure, I am delighted anew. A few of the ornaments have been in the family more than a hundred years and it strikes me that our little Christmas angel – the one I bought at the Encinal Variety Store when I was six – is approaching the three-quarters-of-a-century mark, herself.

Mary’s Cross-stitch

The brightly painted wooden Pinocchio is another favorite.  It was given to me by my son after one of his trips to Italy, ten or fifteen years ago.  He (Pinocchio, not Charlie) had two noses that screwed into place — an ‘in proportion’ nose which could be replaced by an extra long nose if he should be caught out in a lie.  Somewhere along the line, the shorter nose has disappeared with the result that poor Pinocchio’s foibles are forever more constantly on display.

I paused when I unwrapped the lovely cross-stitched hanging that Mary Newell (Fluaitt) had given me one of the years she was my Room Mother at Ocean Park School.  1992!  Lindsay must have been in first or second grade.  I wonder if Mary knows how many pleasant memories that gift has brought me over the years.  I took a break to write her a note

Racing Grannies

Even the wind-up toys that have shown up year after year in our stockings each Christmas morning conjure up wonderful memories.  The two gray-haired ‘Racing Grannies’ pushing their walkers were in my mom’s stocking the very year she began using a walker, herself.  Even though, at 95, her dementia was well advanced, she loved watching those two old ladies race across the coffee table.  I’ll never forget her smile or the sparkle in her eyes as we wound them up for her over and over again.

Needless to say, it takes me a long time to empty those old cardboard boxes.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.