The Story of Our Lives
When I was a child, my mother started a Christmas tradition which has endured to this day. So that, someday, when we were grown, we would have enough ornaments to put on our own trees, each year we were gifted with a new “memory” — a silk golden ball with tassels and pearls made by my Grandma, a red velvet bootie (because apparently my first word was shoe when I pointed at these dime store decorations), a purple ceramic mouse purchased at an art festival that I went to with my father. After spending what seemed like hours figuring out which faded color-tipped branch fit into which level of holes on the trunk of the artificial tree, we ceremoniously hung up our ornaments.
When I was in my first studio apartment in college, in keeping with tradition, I purchased a two-foot tall artificial tree and put it on the kitchen table. Although my parents were divorced by then, the act of placing those precious ornaments on that tree brought back a wave of happy family memories from childhood.
And so, when I married my husband and “adopted” two young stepdaughters, I knew that this tradition had to carry on into the future. In those days, we lived in a little condominium and we would walk across the street to Ralph’s grocery store, load a tree into a shopping cart, and wheel it back home, where we would all spend an evening hanging tinsel and decorations.
Those were the days when I had not yet realized I was allergic to pine and I would spend the entire holiday season in a sneezing fit. We have since returned to artificial trees, like the ones we both grew up with, except that nowadays they just pop open like an umbrella — voila!
As the kids grew, so did their collections of ornaments. But, I also purchased a new one each year for my husband and me. Most of them represent something quite meaningful in our lives — a trip, a memory of someone we loved, or a representation of something we are passionate about.
And, as we were decorating the tree this year, I realized that, all together, these ornaments tell the story of our lives.
The oldest ones that we have together are just simple glass balls on which I drew gold stars with a marker. We did not have much in the way of money back then, so we had a tree full of these, plus my childhood ornaments. Nowadays, we just hang one of them, in memory….
And there are the little wooden soldiers, which my grandfather crafted, and my grandmother painted.
We added a little red and green glass crab. He represents that night on a beach in Costa Rica when we thought it would be so romantic to dine at the water’s edge, but spent the evening dodging a legion of small hermit crabs, who swarmed the beach like ants at a picnic.
The funny wooden Santa, wearing blue and white overalls, carrying a pot of eggs for no explicable reason, came from Aurangabad, India. We had ventured to this off-the-beaten path location to see the cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora. Christmas in India is really quite fun. There are normally huge buffet tables laden with local favorites like palak paneer, aloo ghobi, as well as a section dedicated to western food. And doorways are decorated with “sand mandalas” which say “Merry Christmas!” or “Happy New Year’s.” In Kerala, once, we were entertained by the school choir joyfully singing holiday songs, accented with their very proper Queen’s English, on a rooftop.
But, this particular year, my husband was determined to avoid the buffet, and insisted that we venture out to a restaurant he had read about in an old paperback version of the Lonely Planet Guide. After our first “tuk-tuk” (a glorified motorcycle with a small passenger compartment draped over the back), broke down halfway to our destination, we found another and continued on our journey. Upon arriving, we were slightly surprised to see the dirt floor and outdoor dining. But we rolled with it. We travel in India a lot. We embrace her ruggedness and beauty, and thrive on her chaos. But this was Christmas Eve, and I had hoped for something a bit “more.” It was when we noticed a rat (or two) scurrying around under the tables that we bolted.
Upon returning to the hotel, we were too late to join in on the Christmas buffet, but the gift shop was still open. As we walked past the glass window case, we spotted the “Angry Santa” ornament dressed in overalls and carrying eggs. And that is how he came to arrive on our “tree of life.”
The tiger and the peacock are also from India and represent the time we saw a tigress stroll down a rocky embankment to crouch at the edge of the creek and lap up water with that pink tongue. And the call of the peacock, a sound like the cross between a cat yeowling and a baby crying, is to be heard all over the country.
Our ecclectic tree also hosts our blue-armed octopus with the big eyes. She reminds us of snorkeling on Maui and playing “hide and seek” with a very coy cephalopod amidst the lava rocks. I remember how she could shift her colors to melt from our sight into her background. We also swam with a grand-daddy sea turtle that day. Soundlessly, he glided along with us, watching us with equanimity. I wonder what all he has seen in his day. They can live to be one hundred or so years old. The ocean must have been so different when he was born — no motor boats, no tourists, no plastic….
A glass camera dangles from one of the higher branches. You will often find me wandering about the backyard taking photos of bees and flowers and hummingbirds. And vacation is always more meaningful when there is the opportunity to take photographic images.
The delicate glass greenhouse and the sparkly hummingbird bear witness to our efforts to provide an environment which supports the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Several years ago, we certified our yard with the National Wildlife Federation. We are careful to provide water sources, use organic gardening methods, grow native species, and keep a “safe” space in the front yard, away from the cats. Golden milkweed, laden with clouds of seeds which float on the breeze and shine in the sun, sprouts from random places in the yard and gives the monarch butterflies a place to lay their eggs, which rely on the milkweed as their sole food source once they are hatched.
My husband tells me that the glass kitty ornaments I purchased to represent various beloved pets do not even resemble our babies. But, maybe that makes them a little more entertaining….
We have not yet purchased our ornament for this year, and I think about what we could distill this year down to. Was it my new titanium hips? I don’t think that they make hip ornaments though. Or was it the century bike-ride that my husband did over the mountains near San Diego? Or the soft white sands of Maya Tulum, drenched in piles of intricate seaweed? Or the drizzled blue waters of Kauai, shimmering in an infinite number of shades of blue? Or, perhaps, it is our little grandson, Elliot, playing t-ball?
Or, perhaps whichever ornament we decide on, although it marks only a moment in time, will lead down many paths, to many memories, which twist and twine, and circle around like the garland on a Christmas tree….
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Story and photos ©Erika Burkhalter, all rights reserved.
