Thanksgiving turkey stupors have passed; Black Friday madness has found its way onto YouTube, and I have still not had green bean casserole. The casserole will have to wait because it is now time – the month I wait 11 others for has now arrived. (If you lived in my head you, too, would hear the trumpets heralding.) December – time to decorate for the arrival of the King (not Elvis).
I am one of those people who steadfastly refuses to hang even so much as a strand of tinsel prior to Thanksgiving’s close no matter how many retailers try to springboard off the Halloween candy bowl right over the turkey onto the waiting boughs of the Christmas tree. Nope – I want three distinct holidays. Actually, I want two distinct holidays; I could completely skip Halloween as I am a complete and total wimp; I, in fact, embrace my wimpiness. But Thanksgiving and Christmas – those I adore.
Decking the halls requires a certain ambiance – Christmas music, soft lighting, hot tea, flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers. Even if the thermometer outside reads 70, I’m still wearing the flannel and drinking the hot tea. It’s a matter of principle. It’s a matter of tradition.
This year the Christmas boxes sat waiting, beckoning, as I pulled out my grandparents’ old holiday LPs. Something about listening to the 1950s crooners on a true record, the sound produced by a needle on a groove, just feels like “real” music to me, and the connection to my family through those records turned me all caramel-gooey inside.
I made my way through the first boxes as I hummed along with the records, unpacking each item carefully, knowing each would be a memory, hoping that they would be more good than bad, knowing some would be bittersweet. This year’s Christmas would be my first on my own in a very long time, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that, not quite sure how I should feel about that. As I sat among bubble wrap and tissue paper, it occurred to me that I would probably just Scarlett O’Hara that and think about it another time.
I carefully set up the Dickens Village on my hearth. (Does it bother anyone else that the people are oddly disproportionate to the buildings?) Then I found my cherished pewter nativity, a gift from my parents years ago. I lovingly placed that on the pie safe. Finally, I turned to my tree.
The concept of the Christmas tree never ceases to amuse me. At any time other than December, if someone erected a tree in their living room, covered it in tiny objectively meaningful trinkets, and strung it with lights the whole town would whisper behind its hand that it was just plain tacky – unless it was in a high-end gallery. Then it would be art… but I digress.
I love my Christmas tree. Not the tree itself. The tree itself matters little, and if you saw it you would immediately know that and probably also feel a little bad for my poor, mistreated Charlie Brownish tree. My tree is a bit mushed and squished and mangled. But that’s why God made ribbon and silk flowers. If you have not discovered the magic of these items yet, my friend, please neglect the wonder no longer. It’s very freeing.
The ornaments are what matter to me. The ornaments tell a story, my story. Every trip I make, every meaningful adventure I have I attempt to find a suitable Christmas ornament to mark the occassion. I have a crystal star from Zurich’s Hauptbahnhof, a tin Christmas tree from Staufen in the Black Forest, a ceramic bell from a Christmas bazaar in Colmar, France. I bought a glass sea turtle in Laguna Beach, a cloisonné hot air balloon at Albuquerque’s hot air balloon fiesta, a chocolate covered strawberry at Glendale’s Chocolate Festival. I have a decorated Styrofoam ball my niece gave me the year she was six, and I have ornaments from the time when my first marriage was happy. There are University of Virginia ornaments, and there are just plain Virginia ornaments. My mother went through a phase of giving Virginia historical site ornaments as gifts – I think she may have been worried her children would forget their heritage; not a chance.
Once the ornaments had all found their place on the tree and settled in for the season, I reached for the box that held my angel. She has graced the top of my tree for thirteen years with her delicate, hand-painted features on creamy porcelain, a flowing gold lame dress, and her wings, also porcelain, open to just the right expanse. Thirteen years ago, after a determined search, I found her, and I have never seen another I’ve liked as much. I freed her from her bed of batting and unwrapped her bubble wrap cocoon. Heartsick, I realized that she was BROKEN! Well, her wings were anyway. They had broken off in one complete piece.
I thought, No problem. This can be glued back on. Well, one would have thought so, but apparently not so much. I tried, oh, how I tied. Gorilla Glue, Loc-Tite. Nope. So, now, instead of an angel, I have a delicate, beautiful porcelain, hand-painted face, gold-shimmering-dress-wearing woman on top of my tree.
But (By now, you know there’s always a “but,” right?) I stood back and looked at her and thought two things: angels don’t have wings and don’t wear dresses anyway and yeah, it’s been just that kind of year. Let me expand.
Point 1: The images we have of angels are of beautiful women wearing flowing gowns and sporting wings, but we created these images because they are what make us feel good, what we associate with love and protection and caring. But what if love and protection look like something completely different to God? What if God sees love and protection as something that our humanity would interpret as fierce and terrifying?
While I love the beautiful angels our human minds conceptualize, I lean toward thinking real angels are probably so terrifyingly, brutally glorious that my humanity, in all sincerity, could not comprehend them; after all, angels are His warriors. What warrior wears long flowing robes and invites hugs?
Angelology is not my point; all I’m really meaning to say is that the way I view something may not be the way God created it or sees it Himself. That’s a very humbling thought; the things I think I know, I do not. I know nothing. (This does not come as a surprise, really.) I’m okay with knowing nothing; it allows me to retain a sense of wonder at the ordinary.
Point 2: My angel’s wings fell off and couldn’t be glued back on – with two different types of glue. That angel really, really didn’t want those wings back. Hmmmh. Sometimes things (or people) change – for the good or for the bad, depends on your perspective -and no matter how much I may want them to do so, they just are not going to go back to the way they were before. I am reminded of that saying: in life there are no do-overs. So, instead of looking back at the road that stretches off into the past, both recent and distant, knowing where I made mistakes and wishing I could change them, snap to it and focus on what’s ahead. Much harder to trip over your own two feet when you’re at least looking at them.
So, I believe I’ll leave my wingless angel on top of my tree this year. She can remind me that after more than 38 years I still know nothing, and that the road ahead is more interesting than the one behind.
The Unexpected Life 