Of Christmas Trees Past
Posted by mmkeekah on December 18, 2009
Yesterday I walked by a Christmas tree in a restaurant and felt a pang. I wanted a Christmas tree.
When I was a little girl, my mommy would put up a big Christmas tree in a corner of the downstairs living room next to the fireplace. I remember kind of helping her put up the ornaments and such, but mostly she did this all herself. Up would go the tree, on would go the lights, out would come the balls and dangles and tinsel, and finally, last the star on top. When she lit up the tree, we’d turn off the lights and just stand around it.
I haven’t put up a tree in years.
The last time was in 2003 with my gay husbands, the Js, and we put up their Christmas tree in my basement on the cold concrete floor. It was on the concrete because a few months before a pipe had burst and flooded my basement and I hadn’t yet replaced the carpet. And yet, we put up their tree, filled it with their ornaments, populated the underneath with gifts and stayed up late Christmas eve into Christmas opening gifts.
When I was little, my mommy and daddy would have our family over – all of my mom’s brothers, her sister and all of my cousin’s – for a Christmas eve feast. My mom would spend all day cooking and the house always smelled so good. After we’d eaten, us kids would wait agonizingly for midnight. Wait for the time when the adults said we could each open one present from another family member, from someone who wouldn’t be there the next morning. Oh the delicious anticipation that filled the room as we sat around the tree waiting for the magical note of midnight to strike.
The year my parents died in the car accident, my brother wouldn’t let me put up my parents’ Christmas tree. At the time I thought he was just being cruel out of spite because he was the adult. I thought it was a power thing, an ego trip… but now I wonder if the thought of putting up that tree without my parents being present was more than he could bear. To not have my mom there with her special touch, to not have the fire to light as only my dad could do… maybe it was too much.
Undaunted, I decorated one of my mom’s plants that year with shiny Christmas balls, smaller ornaments and a little bit of tinsel.
When I think of putting up a tree, I remember how much time and effort and love my mom put into that tree. I think of how everyone I know who does put up a tree probably does the same thing. I think of how long people probably collected their trinkets and ornaments to place on the tree with love, just like my mommy. And how I don’t have any of that… of how all of my mommy’s trinkets and stuff are long gone… victim to another move or just tossed aside.
So I won’t put up a tree; instead I will bask in the memories… of my mom’s tree, of old friend’s trees, even of my gay husband’s tree.
Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas tree, thy leaves are so unchanging… as are my memories of Christmas trees past…
