Chapter 36

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

The tree itself was a fake spruce tree, I think. My mother hated real trees. She always said the caused to much of a mess what with all the bristles and dead twigs that managed to scatter all over our floor. Of course, many families use fake trees instead of real ones due to the fact that they last for years.

Our tree was bright green and about six and a half feet tall. The branches were the kind that you stick into holes and not the fold-down kind. They were colored coded with blue being the bottom and largest branches and orange being the smallest and top branches. Of course, there were also black, red, gray, green, and yellow color codes as well.

I put the tree together because Seth was a bit too small and would not know what to do. He did try to help, but he did not understand the concept of color coding at the time. After an hour or so, that minor project was complete.

I did enlist Seth’s assistance in the decorating of the tree. He really did enjoy it more than I thought that he would.

We decorated the tree with five million lights, give or take a few thousand. We strung real popcorn string from its branches and fake icicles from every twig. There were ornaments of every shape and size hanging from each limb. Some of them were brightly colored and most were quite shiny. The lights twinkled so brightly off the ornaments and you could just see the amazement on Seth’s face. Alyssa just wanted to play with everything, of course.

We even had a train set that we erected around the base of the tree, just outside where the tree skirt lay.

The train set was painted a red-and-black color and traveled swiftly around the plastic black track. The set was a true-to-life set, which boasted an engine with a bright glowing headlight, coal car complete with coal, two passenger cars, and a caboose complete with an operational hanging lantern.

Of course, Alyssa wanted to crawl around the track and chase the train. It was all in good fun, and she had even managed to knock it down a time or two.

After all of the decorations were neatly placed on and around the tree and I had helped Seth figure out that you shouldn’t hang three or more decorations from one branch, it came time to put the angel on the top of the tree.

Tree toppers had to frequently be replaced in our family, on the account that every year or two they would get demolished when being put in storage. This year we purchased a beautiful angel dressed in a beautiful beige and white robe and adorned with a golden halo. Her wings were as white as the chalk used on a classroom chalkboard. Seth, being the oldest grandchild at the time, was given the honor of placing the angel at the top of the tree. I picked him up and held him at the top of the tree. After few instructions, he was able to place the angel neatly in its final resting place, looking down on our family from above.

Finally, it was time to put out one of my favorite decorations, the tiny village. We pulled together two end tables and placed them against the wall separating the living room and dining room, on the dining room side. Cotton was laid out across the tables tops to act as snow.

I retrieved a large box from the attic that, upon opening it, revealed a large Styrofoam rectangle. Upon removing the Styrofoam from the container you could see the tiny buildings and figurines protruding from deep crevices, carved in the soft white block of foam.

I began setting up the buildings, of all shapes and sizes, around the outskirts of the makeshift snowy field. The buildings were of various colors, ranging from brown to reds and greens. The roofing on the various buildings was covered with snow. There were small Christmas trees and tiny village figurines. The town was even complete with a frozen lake for ice skating. Once the buildings were plugged in and everything was set up, the scene truly looked like something out of an old eighteen hundreds style picture.

After setting up the tiny Christmas village, we moved on to the final and most important of all Christmas symbols, the Nativity scene. The Nativity scene is a staple of our family Christmas and served to remind us of the real reason for celebrating the season. Our particular Nativity set consisted of a moss-covered barn with hay-covered stables. Of course, you have baby Jesus laying in a manager with a bed of straw with Mary and Joseph knelt around him. The wise men were dressed, head to toe, in brightly colored robes. It really was quite a beautiful and inspiring scene, and it was set up in the middle of the dining room table for everyone to see.