Christmas Memory Lane

There was a time I felt that there was no point in having an artificial Christmas tree. Either it was a natural fresh killed tree or it was pointless piece of plastic. So we would go out to Paul Budd's farm and take our bow saw out into the trees and select a likely tree. We went through all of the cutting, hacking, trimming rituals. Then tie the victim to the car roof and ... well, you know - dirty, sappy, pine needles, bird nests. I have mellowed. Now I just take a fake tree out of a box, pop it open like a perverse arboreal umbrella and get the lights working. From then on it's pretty much Lorna's world. She wouldn't tolerate much help anyway. All the ornaments have to go in special places with particular neighbors - little themes and vignettes scattered in carefully placed 'random' locations about the tree.

Snowflake tatted by my grandmother, carved Danish ornament, counted cross-stitch girl made by Lorna, photo Lorna's mother Florence and Aunt Dorothy - State Fair 1935, icicle made by me, Grandma Adena's makeup compact, Lenox ornament from my sister. The whole tree is filled with mementos and the older we get the more crowded the tree gets. We fill the tree and we become someone else's memento down the line.