Christmas time always makes me feel nostalgic because nearly everything that our families do during the holidays is some kind of tradition. The food that we eat, the movies that we watch, the games that we play, even the conversations that we have are all things that have taken place year after year for as long as Chris and I can remember (and yes I do realize that last one might have more to do with senility than sentiment). But this year after spending most of Christmas running around from house to house in order to be present for each of the significant Songer and Barlow holiday traditions, we came to a realization. Although we had a wonderful holiday, and we feel abundantly blessed to have both of our families here in town, its time to shake some things up. This is going to be our last year of hitting five houses in two days. Corbin is getting old enough now that we think he would really benefit from spending Christmas day in his own home, and this time next year we will have another child to consider. So although some of our family traditions will stay the same, some others will go by the wayside in order to make room for the new ones that we will establish in our own home, as our own family. This is strangely sad and exciting at the same time, and it puts me in mind of another Christmas about 4 years ago when I realized for the first time that the way we spent the holidays was inevitably going to change. This is a story that I wrote for a creative writing class around that time and it is about one of the Barlow family’s most sacred holiday traditions, hanging the ornaments on our Christmas tree.
Every year, during the week after Thanksgiving, my family gets together to drink hot chocolate, listen to painfully cheesy holiday music, and decorate the Christmas tree. The ornaments that we hang are not just any random ornaments. Granted, we do have some old homemade ornaments in circulation. They are the paper Christmas trees, adorned with glitter and framing elementary school pictures of my sister and I sporting hot pink glasses and waterfall bangs. These ornaments bring back memories and make us laugh, but they are not the special ones. The special ornaments are the ones that belong specifically to my sister and I. Every year since I was four and my sister was one, my mother has given us each a new keepsake ornament in our Christmas stockings. The ornaments are all dated so that we know how old we were when we received them, and they each represent something significant that went on, or an important lesson that we learned that year. Together, these ornaments tell the story of our lives.
The oldest ornament that I have is a glass ball on which a picture of Peter Rabbit is painted. I was given that ornament when I was four and my mother was teaching me to read my favorite Beatrix Potter books. I also have a cowboy boot ornament from when I was thirteen and I worked as a farm hand every Saturday to save up for the horse that I later bought, and a miniature adobe church from the year that I took a missions trip to Mexico. There is an “Annie” ornament for the year that I participated in my first high school theatre production, and a University of Tennessee ornament for the year that I started college.
But not all of the ornaments I have received have been reminders of good times. Sometimes they have been reminders of the really hard times I have made it through, like my ornament from last year for example. Sometime during the summer I contracted a virus that had a long term effect on my muscles and joints. I had chronic pain and swelling all over my body and my joints would unexpectedly lock up. It got so bad that I often needed help standing up, opening containers and even dressing myself. It was a year of incredible pain and frustration as none of the doctors seemed to know what was wrong with me or how long it would last.
By the time Christmas came I was feeling pretty discouraged. The ornament I received that year was a Willow Tree angel. Willow Tree is a series of handmade wooden angels, each holding something that represents a personal trait. My angel held a tiny lantern. When I first saw her in my Christmas stocking, I though that maybe she was the angel of healing or the angel of comfort, but she wasn’t. With tears in her eyes, my mother explained to me that this was the angel of courage and hope. She told me that she was proud of me. Even though all she wanted to do was take my pain away, she said she was proud of how I was handling the obstacles I was facing, and prouder of the fact that I was still turning to God in the midst of my fear and frustration. To me that was a right of passage. With that ornament, my mother was telling me she had faith that God would equip me for whatever trials I would face, and this year, as I hung that ornament on the tree without a hint of pain in my body, I knew she was right.
My favorite ornament that I ever received is the frog prince. He is a handmade, green glass frog, wearing a golden crown on his head. I received that ornament the year I met my first serious boyfriend, Chris. My mom really loved Chris and said she had a feeling that we might get married. The description that she wrote on the box said, “2001, the year of the frog prince. Is he the one?” At the time I thought it was just a joke because after all, who marries their first real boyfriend? But here we are two years later, still together and very much in love, and it looks like she was aware of something that I was not.
This year my mother was quiet as we hung our ornaments. I think she realized that this would be the last year for all of us to share one Christmas tree. My sister will graduate from high school this year, move into her own apartment and start college in the fall. And this summer, on July 10, I will marry my frog prince. Although my sister and I will probably continue to get ornaments from my mother every year, things will definitely change. This time next year I will have my own home, and my own Christmas tree on which to hang my history. That tree will tell the story of my life, the life and the history that my mother has given me. And one day, maybe not too far from now, I will continue that tradition with my own children.
