This is us in front of our tree just before we cut it down.
When I was a little girl, we used to make these really cheesy pine cone reindeer, and construction paper Christmas trees (one dimensional, until you glued on the "cinnamon hots" at which point it became 2 dimensional)or the juice lids pictures (kid made, not the cool looking ones one can make/find now)complete with a bow the size of a grapefruit, Christmas colors coordinating totally unnecessary. I remember the time my sisters and I made an entire gingerbread village out of none less than corrugated cardboard. This was back before the cool corrugating scrapbook machines. We carefully pealed off the outer layers so that we would have just the wrinkly insides. I guess we thought that looked better?! It had everything: gingerbread houses, gingerbread stores, gingerbread trees and fences, gingerbread people and was of course displayed on a "gingerbread" base.
But it didn't end there. We also made all kinds of little "gingerbread" ornaments for the tree. Now I doubt we planned for them to start out as cardboard. But Mom, in all her wisdom opted to NOT let the three of us (and that should explain a lot) into the kitchen ourselves, as we were going to do this on our own as a surprise. So the village/everything else was made of cardboard, because that looks pretty much like gingerbread! Anyway, when we finished ALL this 2 hours later, (the amount of time should explain the quality of the decorations) we were pretty darn proud of ourselves! Looking back on this now, I am sure my mom was "thrilled" to be presented with all this...stuff.
I can only imagine the roughly cut out cardboard people and houses covered in glue and cotton balls and toilet paper flowers, ready for hanging with the little bright orange bailing twine loops. We were around the ages of 7, 6, and 5. So it couldn't have looked great. But the thing I remember most is not her reaction at the time. I don't remember that AT ALL. What I do remember is that when I was almost 14, we were unpacking our Christmas stuff and decorating our tree when I came across one of the little gingerbread men. All that remained of his cottonball whatever, was the hard stuff that had become part of the glue. He had that floppy cardboard fold going through his middle, and the bailing twine loop by which to hang him. My mom had kept him, after all those years.
Now in my later teen years, I remember thinking how nice it would be to have one of those fancy, matching, coordinated, "festival of the trees" trees. My friends had them. Wasn't it time for us to have one? We weren't little kids anymore, did we really still need all this "junk"?
Now that I'm a parent, and I have the opportunity to have one of
those trees, that's not what I want at all. Our Christmas tree is a story. Every year we take out the ornaments and tell where they came from (I suppose a lot of family's do this). My mom tried to buy us a new ornament for our own trees each year as we grew up, and I still have some of those, but it's interesting to me how they are not the ones that mean anything to me. It's our kids' construction paper trees, and popsicle stick frames and handprints in clay that are most treasured.
We have a sock from when Spencer was tiny as it was his comfort item, a piece of wooden track since he and Jacob love Thomas the tank engine. There is a foam ball Matty used to play with, and a binkie from each of them as babies.
We also have various ornaments made from a piece of our past years trees. I have a hard time saying goodbye to our trees after they have been so loved! John has learned to just set the "questionable" ornaments to the side and I will hang up what I want. And most interesting is how more and more of the store bought ornaments are remaining in the boxes as our kids progress through school.
If you come by our house, you will find our "homemade" tree proudly displayed as our centerpiece. You will also see our kids' art work displayed in our front windows. So here's a shout out to my mom: Thanks for teaching me that I (we) mattered to you. Thanks for hanging my (our) artwork and "masterpieces" on the fridge...and the front windows...and the Christmas tree. It wasn't their physical beauty. It wasn't there tactfulness. It was me. It was us. I get it now!
And just so everyone knows, before it is suggested that I see a psychologist for my tree attachments. I don't keep all the kids' creations. Maybe some for that season so they feel special (the kids, not the ornaments!) then we toss out the ones that won't last and aren't...their best representation!
