Trimming the Tree

By CJ McCay

As a child, I could barely wait for Thanksgiving to be over because there was no use asking for a Christmas tree before that. But after the turkey and dressing? Let the begging commence! You can probably guess that decorating the tree was my favorite part of Christmas. We never had a lot of money and some years were leaner than others so getting a Christmas tree usually meant waiting for my dad’s payday. Our poor mom had to endure out begging until finally, we could buy a tree and bring it home in the back of our beat-up, blue Chrysler station wagon.

Us kids would untangle the lights and try to find strands that worked or mostly worked while Christmas music played on our old stereo record-player. We had those Time-Life albums that used to be advertised on TV all the time with “all the hit songs by all your favorite artists” and I’d bet the Christmas album got the most playtime — even outside of December.

Christmas was the one time of year that my hard-working, even-keeled dad would get visibly excited about something. My mom bought him bubble lights like he had when he was growing up and he loved those things. The only problem was each light had to be clipped onto a branch and arranged just so for them to stand up straight. It was enough to drive us kids bonkers waiting for the go ahead to add the ornaments.

Then finally it was Go Time. We had a few glass ornaments in deep shades of blue, green, red and purple that had silver glitter designs on them and a few other store-bought ornaments, I’m sure. Then of course, we had the ornaments that us kids had made over the years and those silly green and red construction paper chains that got shorter and shorter each year when links were damaged or torn.

My favorite ornaments were the ceramic ornaments my mom got for us one year. We all sat at the table — even my dad — and painted two or three of them. We could choose from snowmen, Santas, stars, wisemen and my dad, he picked the camel. I can still picture how much he enjoyed painting that camel and to this day it warms my heart to think of it. We all had so much fun painting those ornaments and every year we got to relive that time when we put them on the tree again. They weren’t the prettiest ornaments but they were the ones I loved the most.

I don’t even want to think about how long ago that was but as you can imagine, over the years and through a couple of moves, a few of the ornaments got lost or broken. Several years ago, my mom gave us kids the ones we made and the only one left of mine was a snowman.

When my children were young, I bought ceramic ornaments for them, my husband and I to paint. I couldn’t find a camel ornament but we still had fun. Now the ornaments we put up are ones our kids made when they were little and they bring back such wonderful memories.

Whenever we get to the ceramic ones we painted, I always think of my dad and that camel. My parents are getting older and those memories are even more important now. I don’t remember any of the gifts I received with such fondness but I cherish those memories of that simple family activity and how much fun we all had. Those ornaments remind me how my mom fueled my creativity in a million littles ways with the opportunities she gave us to paint and craft. Dad showed us how to enjoy the simple things.

And always, ALWAYs, they showed us we were loved.

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