Decorating the tree

Friday we invited a tree into our house. It is a Fraser Fir, a bit asymmetrical, but then who isn’t? Standing upright by the glass doors that lead to our back yard, it looks as if it is glancing at its relatives the loblolly pines. The loblolly branches are high about the roof of our house. They are reaching for sky and the bark on their trunks look like scabs.

We filled the tin bowl at the base of our tree guest with water. We were busy with our human tasks, so it had a full day to get used to the space where it will spend the next month. The branches form a tight tangle around the trunk. We can smell the aroma of its sticky sap through the house. I wonder why we feel the need to decorate it. It looks so lovely unadorned, plump, and green.

Saturday we emptied the storage closet of the boxes containing strings of lights and ornaments. Putting on the lights is the hardest part: crawling on the floor around the tree to attach the lights to the lower branches, untwisting the curled cord that connects each light then walking around and around the tree, slowly and carefully spacing each bulb before it is attached to a branch until one of us is standing on the ladder to set the last lights in their place. We complain to each other about our aching knees and back. The older we get the more we wonder why we bother with this ritual.

“This might be the last year we will attempt to do this,” we say to each other. “I always forget how much work it is!”

Sunday we pulled the ornaments out of their storage containers. Many we made ourselves over the years. There are ones of felt, ribbon, lace trim and painted wood. I can still smell the cinnamon hearts we made by mixing the spice with glue years ago.

“This is one your mother gave us.”

“Here are the miniature birdhouses your father made one year.”

“We must put up these needle point snow flakes. You finished making them when you were in the hospital one year.”

“Susanne made the felt mouse that appears to be sleeping in a walnut shell bed!”

“Didn’t we buy the partridges in the pear tree in a gift store in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia?”

Decorating the tree is not something we can do quickly; there are too many memories to be touched before putting each in its proper place. Together the jumble of joy and sparkle of peace tells a story about our lives.