Every year growing up, the day after Thanksgiving we would go down to the Hartman Christmas Tree Farm, pick out and cut down our own tree. We’d drag it over to the netting machine, pull it through, and get a candy cane. It was the BEST. A few years ago my parents bought a fake tree. They came to the conclusion that a live tree made us all ill every year. I'm sure it was just the change in weather.
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| Yes! |
With faux trees you always get a perfect tree. My mom is very into color coordination of decorations these days. I think that’s very attractive, but it lacks a certain personality. I miss the mismatched ornaments, the old wooden ones, our birth year balls, the tinselly garland, the funky shaped ornaments, the bubblers and, of course, the old badass, multicolored huge lights.
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| That's the fire hazardous stuff! |
My mom made the tree skirt the year my parents got married: 1975. It's a huge green skirt with red fringe trim and the words Merry Christmas 1975 in red letters outlines in white, hand sewn across the lower half of the skirt. Above that my mom embroidered the full name and birthdates of my sister, brother and me. Her intention was to eventually add our spouses and children both of which, as of right now, pertain to everyone but me. No pressure, Niki. My sister’s been married for 20 years and Mom still hasn’t added my brother in law. I’ve got time!
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| Me & Dad checkin' out the lights |
Mom wants to retire out stockings. They’re three feet long, wide fuzzy red stockings trimmed with white fuzz with our names stitched on in green felt. Mine says Nikie. I'm not sure when the spelling changed. My name was never my call, contrary to popular belief. I love these stockings. Mom is very, very into stockings. When she was growing up it wasn't about the presents under the tree, it was all about the stockings. We always get an orange and an apple: red for Sammy and green for me (we're particular) and the apples are always impossibly huge. I don't know where she finds these bad boys. Also nuts of all kind and ribbon candy. The ribbon candy always stuck to the inside of the stocking and became covered in red fuzz. She learned one year to wrap them in plastic. Now get Christmas cellophane bags of M&M's, peanut butter cups, a storybook box of Life Savers and a paddle ball. She individually wraps each little present. Each pack of batteries, new toothbrush, Yo-Yo's, mini travel games, mini remote control cars, bubbles, poppers, jewelry, make-up, nail polish, hair ornaments, flu medicine....all kinds of little toys and trinkets and odds and ends.
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| The Mom |
We open our stockings first while mom and dad wake up, and mom has usually made blueberry muffins, OJ and eggs. We open the far too many, yet very appreciated, gifts it is solely my mom's responsibility to procure. Our cat would rummage through the crumples or wrapping paper to sneak around to the back of the tree so he could eat it. He would invariably barf it up in the hallway in the middle of the night and I'd get up to go to the bathroom and step in it. "Ewww!!!! DAD!!!!" Dad was always on cat barf duty.
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| And Tinker Toy duty. |
A big breakfast, a big dinner and we kept the tree up until at least New Years day. I could buy some pine air fresheners and hang them inside our fake tree and it'll be just like when we were kids! There is a certain magic of Christmas that stays with childhood...the anticipation, the wonderment...but keeping the traditions alive lets that magic echo up and ring through the last strains of the year, swollen with reflections, nostalgia and the hope for my very own Christmas tree that Jameson can eat next year.
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| This tree will do nicely. |
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