Decoration

Everyone has at least one Christmas decoration that holds special meaning. For some, the entire business of decorating for Christmas is a beloved tradition. This was so in my family. Each year, I would wait with the growing anticipation that is of a unique brand at Christmas time, for my mother to pull out the tattered box that housed our holiday wonders. The process became very methodical for me as I would make sure I first played with the wooden bear, its sled and Christmas tree whose home was the edge of the fireplace. I would then police the placement of each item that followed, making sure the glass rendition of Joseph and Mary on their way to Bethlehem sat on the right side of the piano, just as it had the year before. There was the wooden Rudolph that fit together in pieces like a giant puzzle which guarded the stockings above the fireplace and then the little wooden mouse which sat next to Rudy, the one someone had given my mom a few years before. Of course, there was the Nativity scene with baby Jesus in the center of the manger, and in the center of the season.

Then there were the Swedish decorations, representative of our Scandinavian ancestry. For years I watched my mom pull out the Swedish angel chimes and tiny Dala horse. The only time these decorations did not make their appearance in the Hazlett home was during our brief period of cat stewardship. Boo Kitty (as we affectionately called the snowy-white fur ball that more often than not could be found hiding under our couch) didn’t realize the chimes were just for display, rather, she thought they were her own personal swatting toys. Several candles were lost to her claws before my mom carried them away to safety. It was a number of years before they were brought out again.

For some reason, I was always most enthralled by the Swedish decorations, especially the chimes. I would stare in fascination as the candles blew the tiny metal pieces in a circle beneath the angel sitting on top of it all. In sixth grade, I was lucky enough to get my own Swedish decorations. My pen pal, a distant cousin in Sweden, had sent me a tin, beautifully decorated in rich pictures of Santa Claus and filled with Christmas treasures. There were small figurines of St. Lucia children and one of Santa himself, wishing “God Jul” to all. A bag of delicious Swedish candy topped off the gift. This was a beautiful intercontinental exchange of gifts, albeit a rather imbalanced one. While my cousin had sent me thoughtful pieces of her heritage, my present to Sarah was a mix tape with a song selection spanning Mariah Carey and “Gangsta’s Paradise.” I thought it an ultra cool gift then, but I often wonder now what kind of image of America I sent my young Swedish relative that Christmas.

Those porcelain figurines are now part of my tradition, and I pull them out each year first thing when the decorations come out. As I now look around my small apartment at the Christmas trimmings I put up last night I see so many emerging stories that I hope will carry over each Christmas.

For instance, there is the small tree sitting on top of the red secretary desk in the corner, the tree my husband’s niece and nephew gave me for my first Christmas as a Stephens. This tree, only about twelve inches in height, reminds me of the first Christmas my husband and I experienced as a married couple. He was in Pakistan and I was in Idaho. It makes me think about the even smaller apartment I was living in then, while I waited for him to come home. I knew there would be no room for a Christmas tree and I was fine enjoying the one my mom had up in her house and the one my in-laws had up in theirs. I decided to keep it at that. However, this would never due for Justin and Ashley, who were fairly scandalized at the thought that I was going to forgo a Christmas tree in my house!

One afternoon I came home and there, sitting on the sidetable in the hallway, was a tiny Christmas tree, complete with ornaments, ribbon, and a small string of lights. I had a tree after all.

I loved this little tree, but thought it would probably only see one Christmas before we replaced it with a larger version. I was wrong. I put it up last night. It’s now going on its third Christmas with us and I think I will put it up in every house we live in, if nothing more than as a sweet reminder that two children brought Christmas to my apartment. And that my husband is home.

Also decorating my living room, and to make up for the short supply of greenery a twelve inch tree provides, I have green garlands up. These are the same strands of garland that last year covered the strange, bare metal fixtures in our then-apartment which we affectionately called the stripper poles. For at least one month I had a good excuse to cover them. That year we had one tiny tree and two very skinny trees.

Now they’re draped over bookshelves and adorned with the ornaments I’ve collected over the years. There are ones from my childhood, ones from my travels, one representing my love affair with the Harry Potter series. They remind me of the many Christmases spent as children, ceremonially putting them on the family tree while listening to Christmas music and eating Swedish gingersnaps. That reverent ritual always seemed to include the ceremonial fighting between my brother and me over who got to hide the little homemade Hershey’s Kiss holder in the tree, and subsequently, who got to find and eat said Kiss. There was no fight this year, but I imagine some time down the road there will be smaller versions of me running around, fighting over similar things. It makes me smile to think about it. At least, I smile now.

And so, as I look around my now green and red apartment, I know that I am ready for Christmas. There’s no snow outside yet, but it says December 1 on the calendar and I have a tree up so I know it’s time for the festivities to being. That, and I have Santa on my bookshelf wishing to all “God Jul.”