Is it over yet? Christmas and New Years, that is. I can’t say there is still tinsel in the corners, because I haven’t seen tinsel (metal stuff) for many decades. But yesterday, when I was sweeping the floor, I found a gold painted pine cone in the corner. By Easter, I expect the last remnants of Christmas will be gone.
The little “life-like” tree has been reboxed and waits by the cellar door to be transported to its resting place. Several boxes of ornaments likewise await storage. Every year when they are taken out of their containers, I’m surprised at decorations I’d forgotten. The silver ornament with “David, 1977” written across it….several handmade ornaments from one of my craftier years, and a very few real glass ornaments that were on Christmas trees of my childhood. These are badly scratched, but no wonder. They’ve been around for over half a century and have traveled clear across the country a couple of times.
One year, when I was living on Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and just couldn’t get home for Christmas, my mother mailed me a package of presents. Tucked away inside were several ornaments which had always been on the Maine Christmas trees. That was the best present.
Over the years, I’ve saved as many as I could, packing them up when I left the west for Chicago, and later when I returned to Maine. The fragile little teardrop-shaped decorations will, I am sure, last another year. They always remind me of another time when we children were warned not to touch, for fear of getting cut on the glass; we were each handed a box of the heavy tinsel which we could put on the tree. Our mother watched as we tossed it on the tree so it ended up in clumps, but she didn’t chastise us. My father’s chore was putting on the lights, which each looked like a little night light – bulbs – of all different colors. Every day, one of us would crawl under the tree to add water to the tree-holder.
The day after Christmas, the tree would be undressed and be stuck in a snowbank outdoors by the clothesline where we’d decorate it again, with food for the birds.
The first job in the spring, about mud-week time, was hauling that rusty looking tree up back into the woods where it would recycle itself into the earth.
My fellow Windham High School alumni members may be interested to know that Gertrude Strout is now a resident at Fallbrook Assisted Living Facility in Portland. Our friend has just celebrated her 89th birthday and according to a relative, has adjusted well to her new surroundings and joins in activities there.
Another alumnus, Margaret Stimpson, passed away last week at the age of 104. Her fellow classmate, Ethel Verrill, resides at Ledgewood Manor. Both were in the Class of 1918. Imagine that! The world is full of wonders.
See you next week.
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