As DR wrote yesterday, we decorated our Christmas tree after giving the cats one week to acclimatize themselves to the big white new addition to the living room.
This might even be the last year I use the white tree. It is its 10th year and really is starting to show its age. We’ll see what happens next year, I might want a real one, or just get a big fake pink one, who knows. I’m not too attached to the tree itself but it’s another story when it comes to the decorations which I have collected since before moving out of my parents house.
Every year after the holidays are over, I carefully wrap each decoration into specific boxes with enough padding that if I was to move in the following season, none of them would break. I then store them in a big trunk ready for the following November to come. Of all the decoration I use, 3/4 of them were purchased over the last 25 years and still evoke good memories of the location and/or time I acquired them. The rest of what goes in the tree are called semi-fillers and fillers… those are usually placed closer to the bottom of the tree or to hide hole I might have left while placing my “good” decorations first. If the cats were to knock any of them, I’d yell at them so they knew what they did was wrong, but inside I’d laugh at their bad taste in “toys”. Those fillers are all placed in one big box by themselves and without too much care.
That said, I have another category of decorations, this one very meaningful, that I actually do not put on the tree just in case the cats decide to play Call Of Duty, Modern Christmas Warfare in the house while we’re at work. I actually bought a little metallic tree where those decoration are carefully placed on the chimney mantle, praying to the lords of all Christmas that they don’t decide to go explore the new shiny things one of these lonely afternoons.
The most special of these decorations is the one my parents gave me a couple of years before their house was destroyed in a fire. Not only is it special because of the timing in which they gave it to me, but it’s one I remember seeing in our family Christmas tree every year as a child too. My parents had bought some really nice decorations after getting married and throughout the years two of the big vintage balls had survived. My sister and I always had a fascination with them. When coming home for Christmas, one of the first thing I’d do was to go locate them in my parents Christmas tree, and even move them to a better “viewing” location if I thought they weren’t showcased to their advantage.
9 Christmases ago, after arriving at my parents and unloading all the wrapped gifts from the car to their living room, I noticed right away that the Père Noël and the Fée Des Étoiles Christmas balls weren’t there… Ahwhat?????
My mom sadly told me that they had finally both broken after all these years. The box they were in fell while they were trying to get the decorations from the basement and those two particular balls had broken with others… It was a weird sensation, I guess I’ve always been too much of a sentimental.
Later on that night, after all the gifts were open and everyone had watched Minuit Chrétien on TV at midnight, we were about to start eating all sorts of good food when my mom and dad came with 2 more little wrapped boxes. They handed one to Syl and one to me. You just know it, my parents had wrapped the 2 most special decorations we had known since being kids and given the Santa Claus one to Syl and the Christmas Fairy to me (they always had a good sense of humour). As silly as it sounds, there were tears all around.
Fast forward 9 Christmases and you’ll find me and DR last night, taking all the decorations out of the trunk, getting ready to start putting them in the tree… Each box I opened was another memory coming back to life… After sorting the ones who’d end up in good viewing position in the tree from the semi-fillers and the fillers, I decided to start with the special ones for the metallic tree on the mantle. I turned around and saw DR holding my most precious one and, although I trust him completely, I started telling him about that particular decoration’s history and that he should always hold it from the bottom in case it should slip from his finger while holding it by the top and at the same time instructed him which location it should have in the metallic tree, right smack centre.
It was the first one in, it looked good and “vintagy” and precious.
After adding the 6 others glass blown ones, I looked back and wasn’t satisfied with the looks of it and started moving decorations around, always leaving the Fairy in the middle. All of a sudden, my sleeve caught the edge of the metallic tree foot and the whole thing went shaking. I managed to catch the tree before it fell but the one ball that went flying was my so-ever-prized Christmas Fairy decoration.
In a slow motion haze, I tried to save the tree and all the glass blown decorations and at the same time reached with my elbow to catch the runaway ball. I nudged it only and it continue to fall, hitting the mantle, then rolling off it and falling towards the tiled floor 5 feet below. As the “expert” soccer player I am, I then tried to catch it with my knee and then again with my foot, but the ball hit the floor anyway.
Time just stopped.
For whatever Christmas miracle happened yesterday, the ball didn’t break, it landed on the floor and rolled away until it stopped by the couch. DR and I nervously looked at each other. My hands were shaking. My eyes were tearing up. I made sure the metallic tree was standing securely before I took a step back, looking at the unbroken decoration on the floor. I carefully picked it up and placed it again in its centre position and walked back from it. So happy it was still going to be part of another good Christmas.
With all sorts of thoughts running through my head as to how I would’ve felt if I would’ve have broken it, I started thinking that maybe someone from above, maybe the one who actually bought that decoration more than 50 years ago had something to do with it.
Thanks dad. Merry Christmas to you too.
Fée Des Étoiles
Père Noël (borrowed from Syl’s private collection. Photo by Pogo)
Mantle
When that ball fell the first thing I thought was “Well… there goes Christmas!”
Id feel better if we put a force field around it with armed sentries.
oh oh oh! I love the Big Ben!
DR: it would have been sad, but I would’ve moved on… next year… hehe
mt: that one is a gift DR received as a big lover of Earl Grey tea from my sister.
Blimey. We’re discussing whether to bother with a tree at all this year. I guess we should make the effort. I’m not normally this much of a Scrooge. Love your dangly bits!
I’m just like you, Meesh. I have Ornaments that have been handed down through the family, including a couple beautiful glass ones that belonged to my greeat-grandparents. Luckily, the most special ones I have aren’t breakable. My grandmother, every year she was alive, would decorate my christmas gift with a special ornament that she made herself (The velvet covered styrofoam shape with pins and ribbons, etc). I have seven of them, all in green (Green was my designated color, My sisters were Red and yellow).
Glad the Christmas Fairy survived the fall. Some things are irreplacable.
Dyl: ahaha… only a Brit would get away with the dangly bits comment…
EP: You said it… Irreplaceable indeed… I does bring back loads of good memories.