I do have to say, though, that I think it's pretty much a requirement for mothers with young children to put in their years of having a not-quite picture perfect tree.
These days, whenever I go to my parents' for Christmas, I'm always greeted with a Martha Stewart-esque tree, complete with a coordinated color scheme and high-quality LED lights.
That wasn't always the case, though. If my memory serves me correctly, the Christmas trees of my childhood mostly fell into the ghetto category. My mom let us do our share of the decorating and hang strands of cheap, sparkly tinsel wherever our little hearts desired.
I'm not really sure when it happened, but at some point mom decided she had paid her ugly tree dues and our Christmas evergreens grew progressively more beautiful. And because she no longer had a use for them, after I was married my mom gifted me with some of the old, more homely of the homemade ornaments. And I took them, not because I wanted them, but because we were too poor to afford any decent decorations of our own.
Ever since we have been married, mixed in with our oh-so-fancy Dollar Store ornaments, are little treasures like this:
I distinctly remember painting this in the sixth grade and thinking it would be the most beautiul and sophisticated thing to ever grace our Christmas tree.There's also this one:
I don't even know what to say about this one. I'm not sure which of us kids made it, and the picture doesn't do it justice, but it looks like what would appear to be an angel holding a star and sitting on a juicy, fat wad of pink bubblegum.Looking at these ornaments, I can only conclude that they should have been safeley tacked onto the side of the tree facing the wall, well out of eyesight. That wasn't the case, though. They were always prominently displayed where everyone could see them, along with all of the other handmade ornaments my siblings had created.
Now that I am the ripe old age of 27 and have oh-so-much-more wisdom (ha) than the newly-married 21-year-old me, I'm glad that poverty forced me to accept these ornaments. They hang on our tree as a very-ugly, unignorable reminder.
They are a reminder to not get caught up in the picture-perfect aspect of Christmas and to just let kids enjoy the magic of the season on their own terms. Trees that can't be touched or decorated by chubby, dimpled little hands don't make for lasting memories.
And the most beautiful part of all this? Now that Riley is four, I'm starting to accumulate a few crappy Christmas ornaments of my own. This year, our tree was graced with a wooden, hand-painted and sticker-adorned Santa Claus and a wreath-encircled, laminated picture of Riley's giant head that he made in Prek-K.
By all possible standards except a mother's, those ornaments are unrefined and, well I'm just going to say it....downright ugly. But Riley gave them to me with sticky lemonade fingers and shining eyes and the unquestionable knowledge that I would find whatever it was that he had created absolutely beautiful.
I do have to admit to looking forward to the day when I can have a tree that I'm not embarrassed for people to see. But for now, Riley has asked if he can hang his ornaments "wight where everyone can see 'em.
And that's where they will go.
6 comments:
Now I wish I'd seen your ghetto tree. Dang it.
My mom eventually started doing two trees - a matching themed one and a big family one for us to decorate. I love me some ugly trees.
Also. Great post.
Hahaha..I did not make that angel...but I do also remember the ugly trees of our youth. I think it more fun to decorate an ugly tree than a pretty one...and from now on my Christmas trees will all be ugle. It's decided.
This rings so true!! I am glad I still have ugly trees...probably always will.
Who the frick is this Dustin that's posting under my name?
Sis, I think I may have in imposer.
Fig---YES...two trees is so the way to go. I actually was going to say something about that but by that point I felt like I had rambled on long enough.
The only thing is I've had so much practice with ugly trees I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to assemble something that looked decent. So it's kind of nice to have this excuse to hide behind (The ugly tree is for the CHILDREN I tell ya....ha).
Dustin.....Audra must have posted under her hubby's name. That's what you get for having the same name as your bro-in-law. It's not too late for one of you to change your name. I'm thinking Pubert.
I'm sitting here laughing because we had the same problem-- our Christmas tree this year was ghastly. It was an old, thin, small hand-me-down artificial tree that shed it's cheap, vinyl needles with every touch. Our cheap hand-me-down ornaments didn't make it look much better, and Noah kept on taking them all off and stashing them in a little box. So our tree was ugly and bare. Made me wonder if I even wanted to try and have a tree next year. Someday when our kids are grown I guess we'll miss our ghetto trees.
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