My Christmas Tree Ain't Got No Theme

The Magic of a themed Christmas Tree

My Christmas tree is not one of those beribboned beauties you see occasionally in other people's homes. It doesn't match the decor, doesn't say anything in particular about us - or does it?

Someone has a White Christmas theme going on here, but blue poinsettias? Pah-lee-az!


Our first Christmas tree was covered in newly purchased lights and colored glass ornaments and a pretty string of star lights that still lights up 38 years later. At least I think it does. I'll find out later today.




Kind of a Fruit Basket Thingie


Any hope - if I ever had hope for one, which I doubt I did, because I'm not a themey person, bit the dust on our second Christmas. My parents had moved to Florida earlier that year taking all of my brothers and sisters with them and leaving me all ALONE except for brothers Joe and Jim who couldn't make up their mind what they wanted to do so they camped out in baby Jennifer's nursery for several months with their shoes, the size of coffee tables, and themselves strewn about in the pretty little apple green and white room till they decided to go get some of Mom's home cooking so they moved too, leaving me really ALONE.

But that's not what this is about, having my entire family move to Florida and leave me ALONE. Well, of course I did have Jennifer, and the Mister, but when you grow up with 6 brothers and sisters and then your parents pack up the wagon and light out to Florida with them, you are ALONE. A-L-O-N-E. But they did send me the pretty felt orange (it is an orange -you know, the fruit, as in "we moved to Florida and you are ALONE but here's a pretty Florida orange -just a small reminder of where we are as opposed to where you are") ornament which I hung on our 2nd Christmas tree and still do 38 years later. I put it on the very bottom of the tree now. In the back. Because it still says A_L_O_N_E and I don't want that to be the theme of my tree.
You mealy-mouthed boot snatchers! So what if her tree ain't got no theme?

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The next year they sent a little bird in a nest. It was very different from, but reminiscent of one they had on their tree for a zillion years with feathers on the tail and the slightly broken beak. So I put that on my tree along with the orange that might have well had A-L-O-N-E stenciled on the side.


Each year at Christmas we would purchase a special ornament for the tree and we often received others as gifts from family and friends. I especially love the blown glass and pressed glass ones - you can see right through them and they don't have the word ALONE stamped in flashing letters on the side of them.

So, as often happens when I sit down to write, without anything in mind at all, this post started to be about all the pretty ornaments we've purchased and received as gifts over the years. All beautiful shapes, sizes and colors that turn our tree into a wonderland of remembrances. And how I lift each out of the box and admire it and remember how it became part of our Christmas. And how I place it carefully on a branch so that each seems to have a specially chosen place of honor. And how I remember the kindness of those who know I love new Christmas ornaments. However, I seem to have unexpectedly gotten stuck on that other remembrance - the ALONE one. Go figure. But later today I will get back to remembering all the years since. The comings and goings of family and friends. The fun and laughter and the addition of a little sparkle to the tree each year. Until my fingers touch that fuzzy round ornament, wrapped in tissue - the one that goes at the bottom of the tree and a little to the back but not quite out of sight. Because ALONE is not the theme of my tree.