Christmas Ornaments

A few nights ago I sat with friends beside our Christmas tree. “Are most of these ornaments from your childhood?” Kam asked.

“MY childhood?! God, no!” I said, or something like that. It was an innocent question, even a sweet one, but the idea of having imported anything at all from that ancient realm was incongruous to me. Not a single holiday artifact has survived from those days, and it's just as well, since I vaguely remember the whole Christmas thing as chronically disappointing, even painful. But I found myself thinking about it anyway, wondering if some important details might have been lost or misplaced, trying to summon up the memories in a deliberate sort of way.

Ornaments? I recalled delicate glass bulbs packed in straw, and more than once I was the clumsy child who dropped one, shattering it to shards. Tears would inevitably follow -- because I was sincerely devastated, and because I was a drama queen, and because we were all of us always on the verge of tears or shouting anyway. There was a nativity scene as well in the early days, painted clay figurines of shepherds, wise men, a lamb and a cow, and Mary and Joseph by the manger with a removable baby Jesus, all grouped in a semicircle on top of the television set. I liked these objects as I did all doll-like miniature things, worlds to arrange and characters to animate. I realize now they were precious vestiges of the Italian culture in which my father grew up, and I wonder what became of them. Dissolved by time, I suppose, like everything else.

My family's efforts at Christmas cheer seemed to diminish over the years until in time there was barely a nod. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I actually remember my sister Marlene and I pulling a small discarded tree from the top of a trash can on Coney Island Avenue a few days after Christmas, propping it up briefly in the vestibule of our building, peeling off fragments of tinsel, hoping we might even find a forgotten ornament among its branches, thus harvesting the remnants of someone else’s holiday.

But maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Memory is unreliable, and I worry sometimes that my recollections are unbalanced, and in any case, my lucky little boat has bumped against the bright shore of a now. On top of the tree in our living room today there is a beautiful white angel from Marlene, and hung among its branches are funny little mementoes of Miranda growing up, a Clara from the Nutcracker Suite who lost her arm in the early 1990s, a mermaid and a reindeer, tiny bicycles and violins -- even a banana and a plastic ear of corn, which, as Xander remarked, have astonishingly little relevance to Christmas. There is an assortment of round bulbs hand-painted by Christine, who used to send us one each year, and there are stars and doves and Santas, too, and a sparkly spider web from Sue. The newest addition is a small red ornament shaped like a Christmas tree presented to us by Xander from his mother. The net effect is very pleasing. No matter how compulsively one approaches the hanging of these ornaments, there is a festive sort of randomness about it, a cheerful miscellany unfettered by theme.

And my brief look back onto those murky waters of long ago only underscores the goodness of the present. This has been my favorite Christmas ever. We walked with friends, not in snow, but on the beach at low tide. Picture Malinda carrying a green umbrella, and Beverly placing starfish back into the sea, because that’s the way it was. Imagine pink shells and white birds, passion fruit and pomegranates, talk of pesto and tango and doing something new. Miranda and Xander came in from town laughing and laden with packages, and there was a windfall of oranges to gather like gold from the ground, and Jeanne gave us raspberry lavender vinegar and sweet dried tomatoes from her garden.

It was the season to discover that a small house holds many friends and there should be brandy in a pantry. There was a Christmas Eve beach walk with Monte, Miranda, and Xander when the tide was at its lowest ebb and the winds were howling and the waves were adorned with white manes and rainbows.

Later Xander told us about his family Christmas traditions: the reading, in hushed reverence, of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve, a bit of mince pie and port left out for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer, the rituals of stockings and presents, the turkey stuffed with sausage -- all just so -- and we mustn’t forget the Brussels sprouts. We toasted Miranda's graduation over dinner, played Greensleeves and carols and Handel's Messiah, and listened (in hushed reverence) to Miranda's reading of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. And the moon on the breast of the hills that we know gave the lustre of midday to objects below...

Christmas morning was the best. Monte and I awoke to a table set with toast and coffee -- and Christmas stockings stuffed and lumpy with licorice and chocolates, oranges and bananas, soap and surprises.

And through the magic portal of a computer screen Xander and his family had a visit.

“Thank you for showing us the Brussels sprouts,” said Xander.

“Tomorrow I want to see you in a bathing costume," said his grandfather, wearing a fez.

Then gifts were opened, given with love, each one perfect, and the best gift of all is to see one’s child happy, and this I received manifold.