On Christmas Trees
My friend Becca is a chronic list maker. She's come up with a new meme to reflect her list-love. Here's how it goes: She picks the topic and participants make a little list of five things.
Here's mine:
1. I love the SMELL of Christmas trees.
For the three years my family lived in Hawaii, we missed smelling the beautiful evergreens that Western Washington is famous for. The Christmas trees shipped over to the islands for the holiday are vastly more expensive and lower quality than you'd see in Washington. I remember going to buy our trees at an air conditioned warehouse.
They say that of all the senses, smell is the one most closely associated with emotion. The overwhelming green smell certainly took me back to where we lived before and hoped to return.
2. I love ornaments that have a story behind them.
My family has a rag tag collection of ornaments. When we used to decorate the tree, Mom would hand my brother and I an ornament at a time to place on the tree. Most of them have been around so long that neither of us kids remembered them not being part of our decorations.
Some of them do have a recorded history. There is a set of around a dozen ceramic ornaments that my Godmother and I painted when I was eight years old. Those poor things were so heavy that they touched the floor no matter where we put them.
3. I love LIGHTS.
Every year, Dad would get down on the floor near an outlet to untangle and test our collection of Christmas tree lights. Even though he'd placed them in separate plastic shopping bags to avoid tangles, they were always tangled. Most years there were one or two that had to be discarded.
Once Dad had wrapped the tree in the lights that still worked, he would turn off the lights to take a look at his handy work. Mom, each and every time, would say "Not enough lights." Dad would then take James or I to the store to buy more lights. Now, Dad doesn't shop or even pick things up at the store without Mom - ever - so this was always a mission more than a shopping trip.
We'd end up with more strings of lights than were originally discarded. All the colorful kind, none of those sophisticated white or monochromatic strands.
4. I love TINSEL and GARLAND.
They reflect the lights. They are shiny and bright.
I've given up on the idea of every using them in my own home again. Tinsel especially is bad for pets.
A few years ago, Cubby got her paws on some red tinsel from a gift bag. I swear I thought I'd thrown everything away that would look like a snack to the cats. We didn't know what happened until Chris noticed some red "stuff" hanging out of Cubby's behind. I know, it's not a pleasant story. Since I'll always have cats, tinsel is out.
5. Even FAKE trees have their uses.
We had more than one Christmas when I was growing up when Dad was out to sea. As all military families know, holidays don't automatically mean that families get to be together.
Mom, James, and I would put up an artificial a few days before Christmas. We would then leave it up until whenever Dad got home. On Christmas day, we'd go see two or three movies after going out for a nice lunch. James and I would get whatever present was our "big gift" but we saved everything else. The last year we did that we had Christmas in March my eighth grade year.
I LOVE that you came by and participated in my meme!!! I am such a list-lover, you nailed that one!
I love how much of yourself you have shared in this post..I knew it would be a great topic for this week!
As far as #4 goes, someone left those red bologna rings in the trash one time and I found myself fixated on the same rear area of my cat too! Amazing how these things happen LOL Thanks for participating and if you want, email me and I will add you to the reminder list for each week!!! Nice to hear from you, I haven't been by in a while...sorry
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Thanks for the wonderful topic. Sometimes I need a wee kick in the rear to get me writing.
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