Little tree in a pot. With ornaments.

Aunt Eileen came over yesterday. I'd promised mommy long ago that I'd make sure the house was decorated, and I'd recruited Aunt Eileen to help, because she's just plain great at stuff like that. While mom usually went all out for Christmas decorating, we decided it'd be a bit less overwhelming if we kept it simple, but keeping mom-esque feel. Aunt Meg had helped mom buy a beautiful (seriously, it looks gorgeous) little tree. It's small and potted, and we put it on a little table (with a star tablecloth mommy picked out) in front of the window. The tree is small, so it couldn't hold a lot of ornaments. Christmas ornaments a a really important part of the D/C/E family tradition, made more so when a few years ago the women in the family started giving each other ornaments with significance. We never had too many fancy ornaments growing up, as mom much preferred still using the ones we used our whole lives, mostly the ones me the brothers made growing up. Since it wasn't even a conceivable option to not put out ornaments, I found that the ribbon tied around the base of the tree's pot was sufficient enough to hang some ornaments off of. Again, it's small, so I had to be selective. Here's the one's that made the cut;

- The "Chris" Ornament - An ornament Chris made probably at the age of 4 or 5, a cardboard wheel with painted macaroni pasted to it, tied with yarn

- The "Stephanie" Ornament - Basically an ornament I'd made in 1st or second grade, consisting of picture of me, framed with popsicle sticks.

-The "Nick" Ornament - Much like my own, his was a picture of himself pasted to some sort of laminated paper he'd colored on. This is absolutely one of my favorite ornaments ever. Most of you knew Nick as a kid, for those who don't, imagine probably the cutest 4/5 year old ever, with a honkin' pair of glasses. Seriously, cutest kid ever. No, I'm serious.

-The "Snot" Ornament - OK, no, we're not that gross people. We had this set of glow in the dark plastic"icicle" ornaments as kids, but have since lost the glow after probably 20 odd years. So, the snot part. These ornaments look like big boogers. My brothers and I found this to be the best part of decorating, and I recollect the tree of us all but elbowing and clothes-lining each other to get to these snot-sicles. Whoever got it would hide it in their hands, and proceed "sneezing" and flicking the 4 others with the snot-sicle.

While decorating a tree won't ever be the same, I cant help but think that mom would be pretty darn happy with the job we did.

-The "Emma" Ornament -This is a little circle/bell shaped piece of wood little cousin Emma painted last year. My mom loved this little girl like you can't even imagine, and, the kid's a friggin' genius, so I'm pretty sure the ornament will be worth money some day.

-The "Wedding" Ornament - As part of the ornament trade, the Christmas after Aunt Meg got married made an amazing wedding themed ornament. It's a glass ball with ribbons inside that go along with the colors of her wedding. Actually, they may be ribbon actually from her wedding, but Aunt Meg will have to validate that statement, as i often daydream things and believe them to be true.

-The "Chair" Ornament - On a trip to Michigan to visit the Elias' I'd missed, the family painted old chairs with designs, to use as garden decor and elsewhere. I guess this was a pretty significant thing, because that year at the ornament trade, both Aunt Eileen and Mommy made chair ornaments for everyone. The one hanging up is one cousin Eddie made.

-The "Seapoint" Ornament - Off and on for the 5 or 6 years, my family has been venturing to Seapoint Village near Cape May for vacations. Sometimes it was everyone, sometimes it was some of us, but these vacations are just plain awesome. One particular year, I was boogie-boarding, and I looked back and had the company of a few dolphins. Yes, I tend to exaggerate things (a gift from mom), but, in all seriousness, these dolphins were under my feet. It was awesome.That year at Christmas, I believe it was Aunt Eileen (fact check?) who gave out glass dolphin ornaments.

-The "First" Ornament - This wasn't hung on the tree, but on the window, where my mom tended to leave out some of her favorite ornaments. There are about 10 or 15 scattered around the frame, that you cant even notice unless you really look. On the window, we hung a little silver bag with "Christmas 1981," which I had no idea what that meant. It was the year mommy and daddy got married.


Though Christmas decorating just can't be the same with mommy, it helps to think that I know she'd be extremely happy with the job we'd done.