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In the way-back land of fond memories, I find these notes about a special Christmas moment that lingers in memory always green…
DUMPTY
The first Christmas decoration of the season to be broken is broken, I guess, by me.
It happens every year.
Sometime during the process of getting everything done getting everything just right getting each and every little item in place if you hold your mouth just right… something gets broken.
In this case, the tinkly shattering of a glass ball causes a momentary lapse of movement. Five-year-old Hallie stops decorating the tree, her brow furrows as she looks up at me—first of all to see if she is suspected of having anything to do with the breaking, and second of all to see if her Grammy (my wife) will scold me, for it is clear that I am the culprit.
Grammy is careful not to moan too loudly, although she always cringes when any of our old, old decorations are maimed.
We have a stack of broken Christmas ornaments waiting patiently for Santa’s workshop makeovers, and I actually believe that this coming year will be the year I’ll try to repair what I can repair. However, the hollow glass ball that I just dropped on the hardwood floor is not repairable, so we’ll just have to try to remember it fondly and pay attention instead to the wide array of family keepsakes that now swing from the greenness of our tall tree, the tree that’s getting harder to decorate each year since we’re getting older and the ornaments are proliferating.
That’s one reason why Hallie is helping us this year, just as granddaughter Jessica used to help. The young ones are here to delight in the project, to brag that they helped decorate two trees this time, and to learn the process for the times when we’ll be too old to do it all ourselves, Grammy and me.
Anyhow, this ritual we carry out each and every year is indispensable to Christmas, and the challenge is, we never get it exactly right—daughter Margaret would prefer we have a REAL tree instead of a manufactured one, Hallie would prefer we have three more trees to decorate, her mother Jeannie can’t wait till it’s all done and over with so she can take a long winter’s nap.
Jessica would rather the trees come pre-decorated so that she can get down to the business of anticipation, grandkids Rebecca, Reed and Ryan would rather just let us entertain them with Christmas cheer all year round, son John can’t wait to share another family story or two, and grand kids Robby and Becky would just as soon get on with opening the gifts now, if you please.
I hope you have something nice to keep from breaking this season, some fragile object or fragile memory that you can hold onto while gazing glazed-eyed at the glowing starry sky this winter
© Jim Reed 2015 A.D.
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast