Empty Nest Christmas Tree

We picked out our tree together, just the two of us, the way we had back in the beginning. Back then, the beloved Swede and I had few ornaments to hang on our tree. During a quick trip to K-Mart one Friday evening after work, we picked up two strings of lights, some ornament hangers, and a package of red satin balls. We decorated our tree to the sound of a couple of Christmas records we had purchased, one by Anne Murray and the other by Barbara Streisand. We owned only a handful of other ornaments back then: an angel tree topper the Swede’s parents had given us the year we’d gotten engaged, handmade gifts from our new friends, another newlywed couple; a straw angel we’d found in a Scandinavian gift shop during our honeymoon. We were young and in love and, in our eyes, our sparsely decorated tree was a thing of beauty.

 Over the years we began to collect ornaments, picking up souvenirs from our travels together. On a summer vacation in Vermont, we picked up a glass ball painted to look like a cow. Friends had offered us free use of their ski cabin, which was about as much as we could afford to spend on a vacation back then. A ceramic mountain goat which has been dropped, broken, and re-glued several times reminds us of our backpacking trip in Glacier National Park. Our tree holds memories of the years when it was just the two of us, years when we were waiting for children.

When our kids came along, we started building their collections. Each year, the first ornament our daughter pulled out was a baby bottle dated the year of her first Christmas. Her foster parents had given it to her, those who had cared for her while we were awaiting approval to adopt. Next she always hung the cardboard tracing of her hand, the one our pastor’s wife helped her make one Sunday evening in the church nursery. Each year she’d measure her hand against it, surprised to see how much she’d grown. Her collection reflected her changing interests through the years: cross-stitched ornaments she’d made from scraps and pieces of my embroidery supplies; a replica of Samantha, the American Girl doll she’d saved her money to buy, a girl playing a flute, mementos from her trip to Switzerland.

The year our daughter left for college we put up our tree early, during Thanksgiving break, so she could join us in decorating it. Last year I packed up all her ornaments and sent them home with her to the newlywed apartment she now shares with her husband.

I carried my son’s ornaments upstairs this year, wondering if he wanted us to save them so he could hang them when he returns from college. “Go ahead. You hang them,” he said, his interest in family tree-decorating having waned over the past few years. The Swede and I took turns pulling memories from boxes. Some brought smiles; others, tears. We found the ugly Grinch ornament, the one which probably came as a Happy Meal toy and which we used to discourage him from hanging on the tree. It now resides in a prime location, front-and-center on the tree.

I stared at the picture of him, fused to a piece of Christmas fabric; the one of him holding the gingerbread house he’d made in kindergarten. I found a spot for Schroeder and Snoopy, the ornament which plays “Linus and Lucy,” and could almost hear my boy playing it the way he used to on our piano. I pulled Chip and Dale from the box we purchased at Disney World, recalling how my son couldn’t remember which character he’d met at the park was Chip and which was Dale. I laughed at the Elvis cow ornament, the one we’d picked up in an ice cream shop during one of my husband’s many business trips to Park City, Utah. I wondered how much longer my son’s ornaments would reside in our home and tried to imagine where they, where he, will be when they leave.

We decorated our tree together this year, just the two of us, just the way we’d begun all those years ago. We didn’t say much. Christmas music played softly in the background, instrumental CDs we’d picked up in Vermont and in Santa Fe. We remembered, our tree bearing witness to so many good years, years of God's goodness and faithfulness; years which have passed by all too quickly.

Linking with Jen and the sisterhood:

 

 And shared as a Community Post at The High Calling.