Oh Christmas Tree and Ode to New Traditions

 

 For years I have added Christmas ornaments for each of my grandbabies to my tree in whatever theme I was going with. At the end of the season, I pack those ornaments away for the day that they have families of their own and will be able to decorate their own trees.

This year, I read an article about creating new traditions in the light of a loss.  Because this year begins a new chapter in our life, I wanted to create new traditions. (Not necessarily throwing out the old ones, but choosing which to keep, and which to add). Just a few moments ago, a friend sent me a picture of a Christmas 8 years ago at my house. Our tree that year was construction themed, and sitting at our table (the same table) was my mom and Loyd. Time goes by so fast! I hadn't even remembered that my mom was with us that Christmas.

 This year I decided to add a new tradition, ornaments to commemorate the lives of those who are no longer with us. I didn't do a full size tree this year, but I stayed with a theme. In honor of our new camping life style, I went with a rustic theme. I managed to add ornaments for my grand babies, a few new ones of my own, and the commemorative ornaments-all to that little tree. I added a black bear (Larry), a cross made of olive wood with the Lord's Prayer in Spanish (Toni), a burlap map of Arkansas (Loyd), a Willow "The Love of Learning" (Melanie), and a pig (mom) all to my little 3 ft tree. Each of these ornaments represents a life and a story. I will pack these ornaments away too and next year choose a different set which will tell a different story. (Larry-yours next year may be apple pie. I am liking the idea of a food themed tree!). I may be in my camper next Christmas, but will still make room for this new tradition.

The short story I submitted to the contest  I mentioned in an earlier post was a Christmas story. The contest closed Christmas Eve (I will be checking that in just a moment to see if the winners have been announced). I toiled over what to write about. I wanted to do a historical fiction and did some research to that end. I wanted to include Louisiana in there. I wanted to get Three Kings in there, but in the end, I wrote about what I knew. I wrote a story about change. I wrote a story that looks forward to this new chapter of my life.

Christmas Epiphany

Lisa, a Florida born navy brat, hadn’t spent her 52 years celebrating Christmas in all the traditional ways. Yes, there were years when the extended family gathered and enjoyed a Christmas dinner together, but her family was built to wander. Most military families are. Celebrating Christmas takes on new meaning when Christmases are spent away from family or among cultures with traditions alien to what you know.

This year with Christmas fast approaching, Lisa couldn’t help but think on all these past experiences and wonder what lay ahead. Now that all the children had grown and established their own traditions, what should she do? Should she dig out all those Christmas decorations from the storage shed?  Should she hang stockings, lights, or continue with a themed Christmas tree?  Was it all really necessary?

For years, she had attempted to create Christmas family traditions that focused on Jesus’ birthday. When the kids were little, there was a birthday cake for Jesus and the hiding of baby Jesus throughout the month of December.  She had loved the idea that they had spent the season looking for Jesus. They opened their presents on Christmas Eve and their Christmas stockings Christmas morning.  She smiled when she considered all those Christmas mornings she woke up early to lay those stockings on the foot of her children’s beds.  She had hoped some of those traditions would spill over in to her grandchildren’s lives too. Maybe her children would celebrate Christmas in some of the same ways they had as children. She sighed. Maybe not.

With her feet tucked under a blanket and coffee in hand, she thought about it all. This year no one would be coming home. Her mom had been gone for a few years now, passing away on January 6, Three King’s Day, a day she had enjoyed celebrating with her sweet Spanish friend. That friend is gone now too. Father in law, Aunts, Uncles, Friends, so many had passed on. Everything had changed. She had changed. Traditions that had seemed so important no longer did. She needed new traditions, traditions that reflected this new life she was living.

Her mind wandered back to sweet memories of Three King’s Day celebrations, three simple gifts, her friend, her mom, past regrets and future hopes. She reflected on what had mattered the most. She longed to explore, to reach for what she couldn’t yet see, but knew was out there, somewhere.  Isn’t that what the Kings’ did? They set out on a quest, expectant, believing, and hopeful. She gazed outside her camper window at the morning sun peeking through the trees.  Glancing left, she spotted the barely visible North Star on the horizon. She put on Christmas music. She thought about putting up a tree and setting out the nativity scene, but she called her dad instead.  Legend says it took the kings two years to find baby Jesus. Maybe she could find what she was looking for in just one.