Untrimming the Tree

I learned early on not to throw Christmas tree trimming parties.  When it comes to decorating the tree, I consider myself an artiste, and I work alone. Ornaments like the dragon, the mermaid, and the snowman who flies among the stars need to be displayed at eye level.  Bert and Ernie from "Sesame Street" must be near each other.  The felt owl and other durable objects go on the lower limbs where they can be batted by the cat or whacked with the dog's swishing tale.  

Of course we no longer have a dog or cat, but tradition must be maintained.  Some ornaments are so old they have to be put in the back. One such is the construction paper Santa Claus Annette made in Brownies.  He adorned her mother’s tree as long as she lived and now has a place on ours.  There is an angel that hung on the first tree in our first apartment.  She’s made of a champagne cork with cardboard wings.  She’s now too fragile and shabby to be displayed and stays in the ornament box like a museum piece that rests in a drawer in the subbasement.  Every Christmas we look fondly at the vestiges of glitter and the halo held above her head by a common pin. 

Solitary as my decorating may be, it’s more exciting than undecorating.  The evening before the task we dim the lights and look at the tree with a melancholy resignation.  When I was eighteen months old, I bawled when my parents took down the tree. I thought it was a magical thing that would stand in our living room forever. 

Now, sixty-nine years later, the enchantment isn’t entirely gone, but I know my duty.  Off come the ornaments to be packed away.  This year we made a cut.  As you age it becomes necessary to divest yourself of material encumbrance. We made two discard piles: one to be offered for our children’s trees and another to be given to the thrift shop. 

This meant that we held each object and reminisced about it.  There was the ceramic streetcar we got in New Orleans, the silver bell that came from Spain, the straw gondolier’s hat from Venice, and the beautiful princess my son-in-law’s family sent from Russia.  We talked about the ceramic replica of Bug Light signed and dated by our friend Fran Barnes. The skating raccoon in scarf and stocking hat had lost his mojo and had to go.

This careful examination of our treasures one by one took some of the sadness out of packing them away. Talking about them was a charming way to pass a winter afternoon.  Now there’s one less box on the top shelf of the front hall closet, which means there’ll be a smaller probability they’ll cascade onto my head when I go to get them down.  Now that the weeding is accomplished, there’s not an ornament left that cannot make us smile. 

The analogy of a museum display holds true.  The Christmas ornaments are a collection assembled over the years.  Some are valued for their artistic merit like a beach scene painted on a sand dollar.  Others have great antiquity and historic importance. Like a museum display, they were wrapped and packed and stored away, but they still endure.  I like to think of them passing down the generations, divided up, some damaged and failing future cuts, but some, the remnant from our Christmas trees, bringing pleasure for a long, long time.