Yes, it's true . . . my mother isn't writing lies . . . it was my dream as a child to have a beautiful, MATCHING Christmas tree, just like the ones at Hudson's. I wanted the ornaments to have a color scheme, which would coordinate with the lights. Each year I would beg my mother to leave the hodge-podge of family ornaments in their boxes and start fresh. Couldn't it happen just once?
When moving to my own house, I inherited my Grandmother's (Thelma, not Flora . . . I'm not sure if Flora had a Christmas tree . . . ) artificial xmas tree. It is complete with my grandmother's hand painted markings, which don't match with the markings on the stem/trunk. And somehow there aren't enough "branches" for slots. And it's from the 1950's so I'm sure it's toxic and I've become barren and cancerous from putting it together this evening.
I love it. With all my heart. I love the fact that it's missing branches. I love the fact that there are forty-seven yellow marked branches for 12 yellow slots. I love the plastic evergreen-like prickles that are misaligned like hair that you have slept on. And last year . . . I made it matching. All matching silver ornaments. Lovely white star that lit up. Ahhhhh.
And this year, despite pretending to be Jewish for the most part, I went out and searched for the blue LED lights, that I had touched in late October and thought "I can't buy Christmas lights in October" . . . and then couldn't find them in December (Hartland Target. Evidently, no one goes there). Bright blue lights, coordinating silver ornaments . . .
And then my mother wrote her blog and the guilt set in. All those ornaments that she sent with the tree. Little silver bells engraved with the years 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974 . . . yeah, well, I don't have bells after that. I think because my parents had more kids and couldn't afford them. The weird piece of plaster with glued glitter that I made in kindergarten. The gold ornaments from Hudson's that they would engrave in front of you . . . shaky "Emily"s in some stranger's cursive. The late eighties, when my mother would buy an ornament and write on it with Sharpie (she had even more kids then) . . . I have a penguin from 1985.
I unwrapped them all and put them on the tree. I have to buy some tarnex for the silver bells. They are currently so tarnished, they are purple. But they are on the tree. The tree of guilt.
There will be pictures shortly. Just to prove to my mother that I unwrapped them all. Cause she's not coming over. I live east of I-275. And I can do the matching tree thing next year. And the kitten ornament is cute. The poodle ornament made by some aunt, not so much.
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2 comments:
The penguin was because of the three penguins shirt that you wore everyday....funny that you don't remember, or maybe it is fortunate---?
H. made the poodle. It is soooo ugly it is cute?
Yes, I remember what the penguin signified . . . I think I still have the sweatshirt somewhere.
And the poodle is ugly . . . but not enough to be cute. So just plain ugly. Sorry. But up on my tree. Hate that you are so good at guilt. Maybe we should be Jewish.
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