Granny's Tree

"I'm not even gon' put up a Christmas tree this year." She said.  "They ain't no point in all that mess."

At first I felt a little dismayed, but then I remembered, she said that every year.

Inevitably, the Christmas spirit won her over every time despite her consternation and there would be a Christmas tree of some kind tucked away in a corner of our house.  Many years it was a big bush of a cedar that my sisters and I went and chopped down, a few times a big bushy evergreen that my dad brought home from a hunting trip and in recent years, an artificial tree.  With five of us girls around, she never had to do any of the work but she secretly enjoyed the sparkly lights and ornaments with us after we strung the lights and flung the baubles on.

In the days leading up to Christmas the presents would start to pile underneath, just a few at a time after she would come home from the Dollar Store and hide away in the bedroom with wrapping paper and scissors. We were filled with anxious excitement while we waited outside the door, eager to check out the size of the packages and arrange them under the tree so we could feel them, shake them and poke them; try to figure out what surprises waited inside.

Yesterday Charlie and I went to visit with my dad for his birthday.  There was a sense of something missing, as there always is in the house now without my mother there.  The more I sat and chatted with him, the more I missed her.  I missed the way she tried to hide her child-like excitement at decorating for Christmas.  I missed her Christmas tree that she was so proud of the last few years, the little decorations she would pepper around the house, the way she would talk about "strands of lights" that didn't work.  Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore, and I found myself rummaging through the back room looking for her decorations.

I found the Christmas tree boxed up, her ornaments and lights put away in the same fashion they had always been; Thrown haphazardly in boxes and baskets and bags.  I found the lights all tangled up together in a ball and remembered that my job as a little girl was always to untangle the mess of lights my mother made when she put them away every January.  My dad watched and we talked while I put the tree together, untangled the lights and rearranged the furniture so I could put the tree where Mama always wanted it.  We found the colored sparkly lights and when I plugged them in, I could see the joy on my daddy's face. "Those are bright!" He exclaimed.  Charlie was delighted at the sparkly special effects.  My mama loved lights that did tricks.

I strung on the lights, all sparkling and colorful, but when I got to the last string, half of them didn't work.  There just weren't enough lights to make it look right, so I rummaged for more.  I found a big jumble of white lights and I was about to take the colored ones off and put the white ones on when I looked up and saw that the half-string that was dark and lifeless a few minutes before was suddenly blazing with bright beautiful light.  "Thanks, Granny" I said under my breath, and I finished the tree with her colored fancy lights.  I know she would have loved it.  She would have wanted it up, if for no other reason than to watch the fascination on the faces of all the great-grandchildren when they came to visit.  She would want my dad to have the joy of Christmas, even without her there.

My sister came in to pick up Daddy for church before I finished the work and cleaned everything up. I told him goodbye, "I love you" and promised to lock up the house for him when I left.  I rummaged until I found the tree skirt, found Granny and Papa's Christmas stockings, but decided to not put them out.  It felt too sad to hang just one.  It was too much of a reminder of her absence for my dad and for all of us.

The tree is there for her.  It is in her memory, in honor of all the Christmases she shared with us, playing Santa when we were little, buying dollar-store gifts for our kids, finding little somethings for the great-grands every year and messily wrapping them before piling them under the tree.  I loved her with every little snowman I hung on its branches, loved her as I placed the angel with crooked wings on top, loved her with one last look through the window at  the tree's twinkling lights as Charlie and I locked the door and walked away.

I hope it greeted my dad with warm memories of all the Christmases past when he walked in the door from church last night.  I hope he sat in its glow and remembered our mother with fondness, I hope he felt a little of her presence there with him the way I felt her there when I was decorating the tree.

I found a little of my mother yesterday, packed away in the back room of her house.  She comforted me with her lights and ornaments, and even with the careless way she had packed everything away from last year.  I remembered her with love and fondness for even her quirkiest of ways; but most of all I was reminded that as long as I live, she will live in me through all the little pieces of her that she gave of herself over the years.  She lives in my father, my sisters, her grandchildren.  She shines back at us from her Christmas tree, reminding us to embrace the joy of the season, even if, like her,
we are too proud to admit that the spirit seizes us like children all over again every year.