Pooh, Darwin, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus
When we moved to Brazil, my parents had the foresight to bring a five-foot fake Christmas tree. I’m not sure what made them think of that–maybe it was to maintain a sense of home in our new environment. I am glad they did because Christmas trees were uncommon in Brazil in the early 80s. In addition to a tree, they also brought our keepsake and meaningful ornaments, lights, and tinsel. We had a complete set of flocked Winnie the Pooh ornaments. They included Pooh Bear dressed as Santa holding a stocking or a honey pot. The set also included Owl, Tigger, and Eeyore. I would always hang Owl from a branch to make it look like he was flying.
Every Christmas, we would lug out the green army duffel bag that the tree was stored in, unravel the colored lights, hoping they would work one more time, and unbag the tinsel we had saved from the previous year. It looked the same every year, and I loved it. Nothing matched or made sense; it was chaos— but consistent chaos.
That tree survived close to 10 years worth of Christmases–and moved with us six different times. When we returned from Brazil to live permanently in the United States, my parents thought it was time to retire our little Christmas tree and purchase a nicer and bigger one. That also meant they would be buying new Christmas ornaments and lights. This new tree would be a “prettier” and more “mature” Christmas tree–not the childish one displaying years of memories.
They went to K-Mart and found the tree they wanted. They also bought white lights, matching dusty pink and purple glass balls, mauve garland, and artificial poinsettias to stick in the tree.
No blinking colored lights.
No Winnie the Pooh.
And most definitely, no tinsel.
We set it up in the corner of the living room; it looked like a setup for a knock-off version of the Better Homes and Garden Christmas edition. My sister and I revolted–it seemed wrong. This new tree was not familiar nor comforting.
We finally wore our parents down, and they acquiesced and bought another 2-foot Christmas tree for us to set up in the family room. We found the colored Christmas lights (how they had kept working all these years is beyond me) and the sentimental ornaments and decorated our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree for ourselves.
I have had the joy of celebrating Christmas with my wife and kids for the last 22 years. Our Christmas tree is very reminiscent of the one I grew up with as a child. Every year, we buy a fresh1 Christmas tree and string it with colored lights. We hang it with memorable ornaments that we have collected over the years. We keep our ornaments in the tin popcorn containers sold every Christmas. Last night, I opened the tins to look for a specific ornament. As I looked at the ornaments, memories flooded over me. It struck me how many of our Christmas decorations are tied to specific events and moments of time. I thought it would make an interesting essay to take you on a tour of our Christmas tree and share some of our more memorable ornaments.
Old Silver Ornament
Amanda and I were newly married and starting to create Christmas traditions for our family. Our first Christmas together, our tree was rather bare because we didn’t have many ornaments. Five-year-old Zain constantly rearranged the ornaments–sorting them by color, size, and shape or just plain moving them around. We decided early on that our tree would never be a “look-only” tree. Living off my teacher's salary, we had little extra money. One Saturday, we went to the dollar store and bought various inexpensive ornaments: balls wrapped in silk thread, curly-que festive things covered in silver glitter, and plastic candy canes. If they broke, we would not be out anything, Zain could rearrange them to his heart’s desire, and they looked nice–well, nicer than a bare tree.
That was 23 years ago. This is one of the few of those ornaments to have survived. I am amazed at its resilience every year it gets put on the tree. A piece that used to dangle from the bottom has been lost to time, but the decoration still holds up. In its own simple way, it serves as a reminder of how far Amanda, the kids, and I have come and how lucky we are.
Perler beads
I’m not sure how the kids got involved with Perler beads, but they decided to make Christmas decorations with them one year. For those who might not be in the know, Perler beads are a pixel craft–you can create images of things that look like pixelated graphics. They consist of tiny tubes of colored plastic and a special peg board on which to arrange the beads. After you have created your pattern, a warm iron over the plastic melts the beads and fuses them together to easily peel off the board.
One thing about our kids is when they get involved in a project, they go all in. We had Perler bead Pokemon, Perler bead Minecraft, and Perler bead anime characters. That year, they decided to make Perler bead Christmas decorations for everyone in the family. For me, they made Perler bead Star Wars Christmas ornaments. They found a pattern online and created a series of round Star Wars decorations.
Ornaments such as these remind me of specific times in our lives. I remember the house we lived in, the time spent at the dining room table sorting through the beads (there were never enough black ones), and the kids presenting these to me. It's like the refrigerator art from when your kids were little; it may be meaningless to another person, but to me, they are priceless.
Glass ornaments
The majority of the ornaments in our collection are stored in the aforementioned popcorn tins every year. Others, such as these, are carefully packed away and stored in special boxes. A few years ago, Santa brought the kids a series of four different glass ornaments. They are:
A ripped Santa Claus centaur
A bust of Charles Darwin
A unicorn in Lederhosen
A squirrel in a pair of tighty-whities
Not your most traditional tree decorations, but unsurprisingly, our kids loved them. I’m not sure I remember whose is whose, but they clamber every year to ensure those are unwrapped and ready to hang. We laugh every time we take them out of the box at how utterly ridiculous, albeit cool, these ornaments are.
Big Ben and the Vulva
Years ago, my parents bought us a Big Ben and a royal carriage Christmas ornaments purchased on a trip to England. We would put them on our tree along with all our other ornaments- nothing special about them–until a few years ago. Anyone knows that in a house with three boys, the penis jokes are going to abound. I don’t remember who it was, but one of them thought it would be hilarious to attach two glass decorations to the base of the Big Ben ornament and turn Big Ben into a dick and balls. It hung (!) on our Christmas tree for a few years, tucked away in a not-so-visible spot.
About a year or two ago, a client gave Amanda a Christmas ornament that is an artistic representation of a vulva. The kids were ecstatic because the Big Ben phallus could now be paired with the Christmas vulva. Given Amanda’s profession, it is fitting.
Santa and Mrs. Claus
One year, Amanda’s grandmother gave us all her Christmas ornaments. She was at the point where she didn’t want to put up a Christmas tree anymore and knew we would appreciate them. I don’t remember when she gave them to us–but they were quickly assimilated into our own collection. There are cat decorations, bird decorations, and other home-made Christmasy accoutrement. Out of all of them, though, two of the ornaments have become our most prized decorations–purely for sentimental reasons.
These two ornaments are relics of a long-ago Christmas aesthetic–probably before Amanda and I were born. Felted at one point, Santa and Mrs. Claus now show signs of their age. From my brief online research, the sequins were not an original part of the ornament. I know that beading and adding sequins was a popular craft in the '60s and '70s (my grandmother would bead and sequin cloth calendars and kitchen towels yearly), so, unsurprisingly, Santa and Mrs. Claus have been blinged up a bit.
Every Christmas, Amanda would see these ornaments hanging on her grandmother’s tree. When she was little, she would secretly move them next to each other if they weren't hanging close to each other. She was so happy to see these two ornaments included in the collection given to us. Each year, she is the one who gets to hang them next to each other, high in the tree, ensuring they are safely attached and won’t fall off. In a silly-yet-serious way, I feel that Amanda and I are that Santa and Mrs. Claus.
After Christmas, when everything is being stored away, these ornaments are carefully wrapped in tissue paper and placed in their special box until next year.
Finding the time and coordinating everyone’s schedule to find a night we are all available to decorate the tree is getting more complicated. The kids all have responsibilities with work, school, and life, and Amanda is called out at a moment’s notice to births. Every year, our lit tree patiently waits for that hour or two of utter silliness, where we enjoy each other as a family and decorate our tree.
It has been years since I thought about my parents' “new” tree. I had to go through many pictures to find the ones I posted. Writing this essay dragged up all kinds of memories. After some years, my parents retired that tree and got a newer, even fancier tree. While their tree is “pretty,” the difference between their tree and ours is that our tree has emotional value. Our tree has homemade ornaments from the kids, a Hermione whose arms have broken off (at one time, we had the whole trio), a bee ornament from Amanda, decorations bought at Ikea over the years, and so many other little time capsules. Our tree is literally a living memory.
We never had real Christmas trees growing up. In Brazil, this wasn’t a thing you could purchase, but more due to a tale my father would tell of a family who lived down the street from him growing up. According to him, their house burst into flames one night, and they lost everything–because they had a real tree.
Curtis, this is great. Thanks for sharing it! As for the real/fake tree discussion, a few years back I burned our real tree in the backyard a few weeks after Christmas. The speed with which it caught fire was alarming. I switched to a fake tree the next year.