Trending
The reason it can take such a long time to decorate a Christmas tree is because you have to invest some quality time getting reaquainted with all the ornaments.
Say hello, how are ya'?
This is once they quit complaining about the storage conditions they've endured for the past 360-some days, stashed away in this over-a-closet area exclusively for boxes and tubs and totes of Christmas decorations galore.
I can only imagine their conversations with each other once the lids come off the boxes and they see the light of December again and get a little fresh air.
Sort of like the relieved Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz" finally getting a squirt or two of oil for his rain-rusted parts.
"Did you see how she packed us away??!!" the ornaments might be inclined to grumble amongst themselves. "She was in such a big old hurry all of a sudden to stick us away once she realized it was almost Valentine's Day! It's a mini-miracle any of us survived to see Christmas 2023 without breakage!!"
Christmas tree ornaments are like old friends and family you only see once a year. Some you're glad to see more than others.
And they all have a story or some history connected to them.
I swear I give each one the proper ooh-and-ahh treatment.
We have way too many ornaments and way too few trees though the Kiaski household is home to several, if only to accommodate as many ornaments as possible. I've even taken to dangling overflow ornaments from garlands and lamp shades and even on Better Half, though he doesn't stand still for long and cooperate and does not exude an excess of holiday enthusiasm.
Translated, he's not up for the job of being a human Christmas tree.
Ornaments make you smile and laugh, some make you more than a little misty eyed and some cement a time in history.
It's amazing the range of emotions that just one ornament can produce.
There's a train ornament in particular that I can look at and get lost in a wave of family memories.
My sister Cathy bought it for Dad for Christmas 1992, given Dad had worked for the railroad. Being the picture-taking person that I am, in and outside of family circles, I snapped a photo of the two of them ceremoniously hanging it for the first time on the tree -- an action shot, I believe was the way I directed them during the holiday photo shoot.
Little did we know that it would be Dad's last Christmas.
So every time I see this ornament, I just naturally think of Christmas of 1992 and the father I miss and I feel my eyes start to puddle, but I also laugh at some point about a real-train memory from 1980 when I was a newbie at the newspaper.
The railroad tracks run behind the newspaper building, and it was certainly not uncommon for dad to be motoring by in a choo-choo train.
Well, one day, Janice was in a hurry to get back to the newspaper and scooted across the tracks, even though the crossing gate was down in anticipation of a train in the distance.
Later that day Dad asked a caught-you question, if I had committed a driving sin no railroader's daughter should.
That he already knew the answer cemented the reality my siblings and I knew to be true: Our father always knew where we were, what we were doing and what we weren't supposed to be doing.
As you decorate your trees this year, I hope you enjoy getting reacquainted with all your ornaments.
And hopefully, they'll all be in a good mood hanging out together.