Christmas Come Full Circle

It was usually just her and her mom on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  They would walk down to the Boy Scout Christmas Tree Lot, and choose one of what was left of the trees.  What was left of the live trees were usually the misshapen and scraggly.  "It's a tradition to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve!" Her mother would remind her...and they'd decide which of the free trees was the best.  Then, they'd lumber and carry the sharp needled, sap dripping tree the 4 blocks to their southern California rental home.  

Once they got the tree through the door, they would then wrestle the stump of the tree into a metal base, the same red and green one they used every year.  Every year this seemed one of the hardest aspects of the decorating process.  She didn't really understand why we needed to provide the tree with water but, she trusted her mother.  Implicitly.  She was still in her single digit years...before pre teen doubts and questioning would take over...

Mother would then bring out the boxes that contained the treasured ornaments.  First the lights went on.  Then the shiny tinsel garland.  As an adult she couldn't remember if it was silver or gold...but somehow that garland survived year after year, just a little thinner in places and sometimes broken into different lengths from wear and tear.  But always a constant.  Christmas tree decorating didn't mean purchasing new items to make the tree better...it meant using the old and treasured to continue the memories.

Her favorite were the collection of home made felt mouse ornaments.  She could never figure out when mother had made them, mom was single and worked full time.  She sometimes sewed clothes and did other crafts...but the felt mouse collection HAD to have taken some time.  She couldn't remember a Christmas that they didn't have them.  Perfectly stitched, with little outfits adorned with zig zag brick  brack accents.  Shiny loops sewn in to hang them on the tree.   Girl mice and boy mice.  Each could fit in the palm of her hand.  She would carefully inspect each one as it went on the tree.  The detail was remarkable.  She was proud to display them, even if it was just for her, her mother, and Santa Claus.

Finally the lollipop garland and the star was the final touch.  She would remove the garland from it's protective plastic bag covering; The lollipops were covered with fake plastic sugar crystals but looked so real.  Then the star at the top, always last.  They would put up the nativity, also a handmade treasure.  It was a rough structure with unsanded sections of thin wood branches as the bases for each figure, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus' manger.  Somehow, although this little nativity would really be the only representation or celebration of Christ's birth during her formative  years...she gained a strong testimony that He lives.

Most years, once the tree was decorated and after milk and cookies were laid out for Santa, hot chocolate (her favorite) was consumed, and whatever holiday movie was showing on TV that night...mother would plan to attend midnight mass up the street.  And every year, they'd fall asleep and miss it.   Somehow she'd find herself in bed and then up at the crack of dawn early the next day.  Half the milk drunk, and bites out of each cookie, proved that Santa had been there...

Christmas morning never brought disappointment.  But it's the Christmas Eve she always remembers.  Her dad lived in the same town, a few blocks away...but she never remembers him being part of Christmas or the gifts he gave.  Her mother was the magic, the creator, and the essence of her Christmas.

Later, her mother would add the tradition of seeing a production of The Nutcracker at the local community college.  

Eventually, she became jaded.  She started to notice what Christmas was lacking.  Others had snow flecked trees, and they were up WAY before Christmas.  She grew into a sullen teenager that resented all that they didn't have at that time of year.  Christmas Break was no longer family time but an opportunity to party while school was out!  Go to a lame show with here MOM?!?  No way.

It was years later, once she was a mother herself...that she saw those Christmas pasts for what they were.  The Christmas Eve "tree tradition" was because they were free then, for a single mom on a budget.  Those homemade ornaments used year after year were out of necessity.  Her mother put thought and care into making Christmas magic happen.  In later years, she would long and yearn for those mice ornaments and the wood nativity.  Luckily she had many more Christmases to make magic, with her mother...whether near or far.