Christmas Trees, Ornaments, Cans of Soup: They All Have Feelings Too

My mother was not a particularly sentimental woman. She had a sort of disdain for saving mementos even from some of life's more significant events. Shortly after she was married she donated her wedding gown to a convent so the nuns could wear it when they became brides of God. I remember playing with her wedding veil until the tulle on it turned yellow and became matted like dreadlocks. She was the one who got sick of it, and when she did, she simply threw it out. I was the one who cried.

So, when I got married on December 19th, 1998, I had little Christmas ornaments made from the design of my wedding invitation and I gave them out to my guests. I had a few extra and so did she. Five years later, when I was getting divorced, I asked her, "What do you think I should do with the ornaments?" Her short answer: "Hang them on the tree."

Of course! What was I thinking? Duh.

In fact, I spent Christmas with my mother in Pennsylvania when my divorce, highly contested, became legal on Christmas Day of 2003. I remember looking at the tree and thinking, "How many of these ornaments did she get anyway?" The tree was covered with them. Apparently, she must have really liked them -- she had quite a few.

Of course, I was not surprised she didn't even fake an attempt to protect me emotionally (I can hear her now, "...from Christmas ornaments?!?!"). My mother was ruthless when it came to stuff like that. When it came to throwing away things like high school yearbooks ("You'll never see them again!"), giving away your favorite paperbacks ("Sorry, I thought you read it already!"), she was glib and completely at a loss trying to figure out the arcane value we attached to things.

The irony is that what my mother lacked when it came to feelings of nostalgia, she more than made up for when it came to anthropomorphizing.... anthropomorphizing almost anything. She was one of those people who could make you believe that a can of soup could feel lonely. She thought of her sewing machine as eager and she believed her cat had a true and internally articulated desire to be held like a real human baby.

She was gifted.

Her ability to impose human feelings on virtually anything made her one of the greatest kindergarten teachers who ever walked the planet. She taught children to read by using blow-up cartoon characters of letters and the following year, she criticized the new teacher for letting the students see "Mr. M" lying deflated on the shelf. I could never figure out if she was sad for the students, sad for herself, or sad for Mr. M.

Hence the Christmas wedding ornaments. My mother loved decorating for Christmas and she loved her Christmas tree.

(She loved it right up until the day after Christmas. Then, all of a sudden, having crossed that invisible line, her tree became simply a piece of dried out, fire-hazard-needle-dropping-heap-of-nostalgia, and it needed to be immediately removed and set curbside as soon as possible, lights included.)

My mother really liked the Christmas wedding ornaments and liking them made it worse for her. She thought they were pretty and she attached no negative emotional significance to them. Therefore, she absolutely did not want them to feel lonely and left out and she knew they would make the tree (feel) pretty.

And after all, as she once said to me about Christmas trees: "They want to be dressed up, you know."

Now I have the ornaments; they're sprinkled all over my tree, I think of her and I figure who cares if they were once attached to something else. (Who was that guy anyway?)

I also have these great cupcakes, golden pine cones, and this adorable bird. I love ornaments. I think my tree does too.