The Little Pink Fairy Elf-Like Thing...

Every year... it amazes me. I desperately seek out the spirit of Christmas. I long to feel that warm and fuzzy feeling that people get when they are filled with the joy of Christmas. Every year... I search and search... and eventually I just give up saying... "Well... I will either get it... or I won't... we'll just have to wait and see I guess."

My last post about the Grinch... was my "Ok... I give up!"

My poor little fakey Christmas tree sat decorated only with lights, and a long bow of red ribbons that cascaded below my lighted angel that sits on top of the tree guarding all of it's "treasurous memories"... only for several days... no "treasurous memories" adornded it's branches.

Last night, while complaining about not finding my warm and fuzzyness... my dear and blunt husband said..."Well, It might help if you put some decorations on that poor tree. Dontchya think?" I admit... It looked pathetic.

I dreaded going through my decorations. Every year... when my dear, sweet husband, Rich... gets tired of the tree being up... it comes down in a flurry and is crammed into boxes. The boxes are then stashed far far away in the spare bedroom out of the way... so that the next year it will take a bulldozer to find them all. He can have the tree down in the blink of an eye... and when I get home from work on that given day... there are no traces of Christmas left to be found. The only hint that there even was a holiday might be the tiny little shreds of wrapping paper that got missed in the frenzy to get it all into the woodstove. (Which, I know you are not supposed to do... but try telling 'you know who' that!!) So, yeah... I dreaded going through my decorations.

Hannah is the official "ornament-puter-oner". I get the lights on (which next year... I am saving that step and getting a pre-lit tree! HA)... and she decorates it. This year I had a mess on my hands. I sat on the couch and went through each box. I picked up the first ornament... and six others were all hooked to it. I carefully unhooked the hook out of the little pink fairy looking elf-like thing's eye. Then... it happened! Hannah came over and said..."You're not putting that thing on the tree this year are you?"

The tears streamed like a salty flowing river down my cheeks as I sat there holding that little pink fairy looking elf-like thing. I held her gently in my hands and pulled her to my heart. Through the tears and the grapefruit sized lump in my throat... I told her that the little pink fairy elf-like thing would be the first thing on the tree. I then explained to her that I remembered seeing that little ornament nestled in between the branches of my Mama's Christmas tree ever since I can remember being able to see up into the branches. My Mama always nestled cute little tiny dolls and such deep into the open branches of the trees that we had... kind of like they had their own little world inside there. What a child's mind can imagine while peeking into that world that only came around once a year.

I know that I have said many times that Christmas is not about trees, and shopping and gifts and lights and whatever else is so commercialized these days. But... I found my Christmas spirit in a box of old ornaments. It wasn't so much the ornaments themselves... it was each memory that every one of them held inside them. They reached inside my heart... and pulled out those memories. I sobbed as I remembered decorating my Mama's tree for her when I got old enough. Tonight I held the very crayons that my Mama tied red yarn to when my brothers were about three years old. We didn't have money for new ornaments... but we had crayons and red yarn! That year... and for many years after... her tree... and now mine... were adorned with multicolored crayon icicles. I have four left. The tape is old and yellow where the yarn is attached... and a couple of them look as though they got colored with some year prior... but they still hang on my tree... and I hope they will hang on my daughter's tree some day. My tree is full of little tiny memories that hang from each branch.

I know that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ... at least for me... that is the true meaning. He gave the greatest gift of all. He gave his very life... so that we would have the opportunity to have eternal life in heaven. What an awesome gift! I believe that God gifts us with our memories as well. Each one so precious... so very rare and precious. Each one of us has our own unique memories... that are only for us. We can choose to share those memories with others... some... mere words cannot even come close to describing. Each one... is a gift from God. I am a firm believer in the fact that memories make us who we are. They are the remnants of the life we have lived... and the people we have loved... and the good times (and bad times) we have endured.

As I sorted through the boxes of ornaments... Hannah asked me... "Will you tell me the story behind each ornament?"

So I did. I shared each memory behind each one... with hopes that when she has children... and I am no longer on this earth... that the memories she has of me sitting on the couch sobbing over a little pink fairy elf-like thing... are tucked deep in her heart as she reaches inside herself to find her Christmas spirit... that warm and fuzzy feeling... the memories that last beyond all time and space... and that will live all the way into eternity.