Haiku 2023–346

treasured Christmas star

many were manufactured

one of them is ours

— —

When my wife pulled it off the shelf at Target, I was lukewarm at best about buying it. We already had a star for our Christmas tree and I didn’t think it needed replaced with a plastic star-shaped, rainbow-lighted infinity mirror straight out of the seventies. Nevertheless, in the cart it went for the journey home. We put up the tree, placed the star on top… and it was perfect, absolutely perfect — for the tree, for our house, for our family. (One of these days I will learn the lesson to fully trust her decisions when it comes to aesthetics.)

In a society that mass-produces so many things that end up in the waste pile, it is possible at times to become attached to something that’s identical to the hundreds of items on either side of it in the manufacturing line. It isn’t so much the item itself, as how that item fits into your life and completes a figurative, if not literal work of art. Our Christmas tree sits five feet to the left of me as I sit here and write this. I glance over and notice the tree lights that remind me of my childhood. I see the hundreds of ornaments that tell the story of our family. I appreciate the steadily-growing pile of presents that can only be purchased because our basic needs are beyond being met. I also see the star, pulsing with colors and light, a shining reminder that I’m married to someone who often…. okay, quite, quite, quite often… has better ideas than I do and is my perfect companion. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.