Our family always cut our own Christmas trees when I was a kid. We would either venture into the woods behind the farm or drive the mile to what we referred to as "the lower farm" that my Uncle Dale owned, to find a tree. I recall one year my brother, Charlie, drove the rest of us kids to pick out a tree. He got the truck stuck in the snow and we all had to walk the mile home to get a tractor to pull the truck out. It seemed that every year the tree would end up being too tall to fit in the living room and we'd have choose to either saw several inches off the bottom of the tree or cut a hole in the living room ceiling. We always chose to cut off the bottom of the tree.
Decorating the tree was always fun. One of my older siblings got the job off stringing the lights and then we'd all put the ornaments and thin strands of silver tinsel on. Plugging the lights in when the tree was fully trimmed was always a breath taking affair. We never put any presents under the tree until the morning of Christmas Eve. Then, we would all trudge up and down the stairs carrying armfuls of gifts that we'd hidden away upstairs. I can still hear the sound of our thumping feet on those old wooden stairs. Soon the living room was full of presents waiting to be opened later that night when the church Christmas program was over.
I'm sure our tree was decorated like many others in the 1970's. We used the big Christmas lights that would get hot to the touch. We had three main kind of ornaments: glass tiered ornaments with frosted rings, glass balls in different colors, and red and green balls covered in satin thread. But there were always two special ornaments on the tree each year. One was a silver teapot and one a red bell. The teapot belonged to my Grandma Betz and the red bell had been my Grandma Miller's. Every year those ornaments hung in the same spot on the tree. The teapot was especially fragile with it's glass handle and spout. I believe I heard a story that one year, my brother Mike's class was told to each bring an ornament to school to decorate the classroom tree. Mike reportedly took the red bell without Mother's knowledge. Thankfully it made it home again, unharmed.
At some point in the last several years of Mother's life, she told me that I could have the teapot and bell ornaments when she died. While I was thrilled that those special ornaments would some day be hung on my tree, I hoped that day would never come, because it meant Mother would no longer be with us. After Daddy died, Mother told me that I should take the ornaments home. I told her that as long as she was alive, they would stay at the farm and be on her tree. That was where they belonged.
Last fall, a few months after Mother died, I ventured up into the attic at the farm knowing it was time to bring the teapot and bell ornaments home with me. Suddenly, I felt extremely guilty for taking them. Surely they were as special to the rest of my siblings as they were to me. Still, Mother had told me to take them. As I found them in their boxes, tears sprung to my eyes. The simple red bell had belonged to Mother's mother. She died when Mother was only 17. She never met any of her grandchildren. But she had hung this very bell on her tree many years before. The teapot was a bit tarnished and looked so fragile. The thought of Grandma Betz, who died just before I turned 3, hanging this ornament when my dad was a kid brought even more tears. What treasures these simple ornaments were to me. I wondered if they would survive the 3 hour drive home. I carefully wrapped the ornaments in tissue paper and placed them in a small box to bring home. The guilt of removing them from the farm remained.
They survived the drive home and after putting them on my tree to take pictures, I put them back in the box and placed it in the hutch in our dining room. The ornaments were too fragile to leave on the tree, where they could easily be broken. I vowed that I'd find display boxes for them, but I never got around to it. A year later, the box still sat in the hutch, the teapot and bell hidden away inside.
Yesterday I pulled our Christmas tree out of the basement and set it up. I strung the lights and unwrapped all the ornaments that we've collected over the years. The kids each have accumulated several of there own. I figure that by the time they are adults and move out, they will each have enough ornaments to decorate their own tree. I have lots of personalized ornaments and lots of other special ones too. None of them are fancy, but so many bring special memories to mind. My sister, Jo has given me two different red fox ornaments in honor of my dad. She also gave me two special angel ornaments last year. Each says "Heaven is My Home". One is a girl angel with the word 'Mother' and the dates 1924-2011. The other is a boy angel with the word 'Daddy' and the dates 1917-2009. Those are very dear to me. I also smiled as I hung a 'peace' ornament recently given to me by two new friends who told me that I bring them peace. Little do they know how much they have brought to my life. Hanging the special snowflakes that Eric's grandma crocheted for us a month before she died at the age of 91 always bring back lovely memories of her.
As we decorated the tree, I kept hearing Mother speaking to my heart. I was reminded of the teapot and bell hidden away in my hutch under layers of tissue paper. I could hear Mother telling me that the ornaments were meant to be hung on the tree, where I could enjoy them. She said, "If they get broken, they get broken. But what good are they doing you if they are tucked away where you never see them?" I could feel her telling me that if I wasn't going to use the ornaments, I may as well have left them at the farm. I tried to dismiss the thought, but as I hung other ornaments on the tree, I noticed I was leaving a couple of open spots. They were the exact spots where the teapot and bell always hung on the tree at the farm. I went to the hutch and took out the box. As I unwrapped each of the two ornaments, I said a silent prayer that they were each still in one piece. They were. I hung them on the tree right where they belonged and stepped back to take a look. It was a breath taking sight. The teapot and bell fit in perfectly. As I took in the beauty, I noticed my "Mother Angel" ornament smiling as she looked over at the teapot and bell! The "Daddy Angel" was doing the same.
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