I remember my first Christmas after my mother died. She died in 1980, 7 weeks before Christmas, and I was the recipient of most of her things, including the Christmas ornaments and decorations. As Christmas approached we bought a huge tree and proceeded to decorate it with all the beautiful things of my mothers. I loved it, as it was the best tree ever. Vintage ornaments, handmade ornaments, crocheted angels. So, Christmas Day came, and my father was supposed to come over for dinner and to spend the day with us. He walked in the front door and just stood there, staring at the tree. Suddenly, he blurted out "The tree looks just like Mama used to do it. I can't take it!" and then he walked out. Christmas was destroyed.
Years later, in 2001, a few months after my father died, I sat with my box of Christmas ornaments, attempting to decorate our tree. All I saw were memories of my mother in that box. The sadness and grief over took me, as I, one by one, picked up each ornament and threw them, breaking them against the wall into another box across the room. All I wanted to do was destroy the pain.
So, this year, I misplaced my ornament box. They are nowhere to be found. But, I did find a Christmas bin with some odds and ends of Christmas things. I went searching through it and to my surprise, on the bottom of it, were some old ornaments, very old ones, wrapped very carefully. My mother's ornaments, or what was left of them. 20 of them, perfectly protected and whole.
Even though in my grief I tried to destroy them all, God knew that sometime in the future I'd get over the anger and grief and long for Mom's things again. My tree looks beautiful, filled with vintage ornaments that my mother treasured.
