creaky knees and tiny trees

For years and years Mama had a tiny green ceramic tree, decorated with little glass tubular inserts (that always came loose and wound up rattling around in the box) and sat on a Styrofoam ring with a light bulb you could plug in and see a faintly discernible glow and watch closely to make sure nothing caught on fire. I asked her (only once) why we didn’t have a live tree and she said it was just too much trouble, always sweeping up drying needles, and then trying to figure out a way to dispose of it.

Fast forward 20 years, hubby is in the military and there were babies in my house. Our first Christmas back in Alabama, we went out to the farm at Locust Fork and chopped our own, dragged it down the hill to MawMaw’s house and then attached it to the top of the station wagon for the trip back to Maxwell AF Base. Unfortunately we didn’t think to cover it with a sheet or anything and it was a sorry bedraggled mess by the time we got to Montgomery, not really worth messing with, but he was proud and so we persevered. About the time we hung the last antique mercury glass ornament Midnight The Devil Cat jumped smack in the middle, sending it crashing to the floor, razor-sharp shards flying everywhere. So much for that.

For the next several years (as we PCS’d from State to State, base to base) I bought fake stick-together trees and decorated them with clip-on-wooden birds, crocheted yarn wreaths, plastic icicles, popcorn strings, and play-dough-baked ornaments the kids made in school. Even after kitty crossed the rainbow bridge, the shiny glass ornaments stayed packed away. Not quite as esthetically pleasing but the kids liked it and that was all that mattered. One year I wrapped empty matchboxes and jewelry boxes and set them under the tree, only to find the next morning that number-one-son had decided to find out what was in them and left them scattered among a nest of paper scraps and shredded bows.

The first year I spent by myself, I didn’t intend to have a tree at all. But one of the girls at work gave me a tiny fake one (guess she felt sorry for me) so I set it on a brass and glass table next to the patio doors at my beach condo and enjoyed watching the ocean roil as a backdrop.

Married again, celebrating the first Christmas together in the BIG HOUSE, it was a live tree for me, with all the pretty ornaments, but by then there was another cat in the house, and even though the tree was tied to the wall, it only gave him purchase and the freedom to climb at will; after several of the shiny lovely things died tragically on the concrete floor, I decided wooden ornaments were best.

The year hubby was in Iraq, I sent him a tabletop tree (which some youngster no doubt enjoyed after he rotated out) and bought another tiny one for myself, both decorated with red/white/blue ornaments.

The next year, when he was on the border, I took a tiny one for the 3-day weekend and brought it back home with me.

For the last five years we’ve had no tree in the house larger than 14 inches. Oh, there’s a six footer in the garage, wrapped in plastic and stored in its taped Garden Ridge box, but as I get older, I find it increasingly difficult to muster the will/strength to drag it out and fluff it up and hang the Battenberg lace angels and Lillian Vernon porcelain doves and then three weeks tear down and pack up and store in the attic. My creaky knees know tiny trees are best. And I have become my Mother.