Dec 14 2008
The Stuff of Holiday Memories
My mother was not real keen on homemade decorations. While my other little friends were stringing popcorn and cranberries to put on their trees, we were loading up our artificial seven footer with real metal icicles that were so heavy, they could not be picked up by the average vacuum cleaner.
I still own some of the ornaments that came from my grandmother’s little four foot, white, artificial tree. These small glass balls have survived for more than fifty years of tree decorating. It’s amazing to consider that I have ornaments that are significantly older than me.
My mother would occasionally stoop to allow us to put a candy cane on the tree or a school made snowflake if we would put it way in the back where no one could see it. We always had three or four hundred large multicolored lights. She would not tolerate white, blinking or tiny lights of any kind. And the tinsel distribution had to be perfectly balanced. The tree skirt was old and missing much of the original glitter and pasted-on snowmen, but we always forgot about replacing it until it was just too late to bother.
The end result was always the same - the best looking Christmas tree on the block.
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