Last night, I spent the night at my parents' house in Centerville, and my parents I spent the evening pulling out Christmas decorations and hanging them up. They had already assembled the tree (yes, it's a fake tree--a fake tree I'm fondly familiar with) and my dad had put up the lights, but we had to put on the braid. And the ornaments.
As I unpacked a variety of things, I realized why I love Christmas so much more than I love any other time of years. Christmas, for me, is memory. There is not a single ornament on our Christmas tree, a single Nativity set, a single wall hanging, or a single toll-painted Santa or some such that does not remind me of a Christmas past.
The black Santa and black angel ornaments are a result of my older brother serving a mission in South Carolina. He sent them home his first Christmas away and told us we needed to be more multiracial.
The doily-like snowflakes now officially have to move farther up the tree--again--because they are coated in sugar (to preserve them?) and my older sister and younger brother both loved to suck on them when they were younger.
The toll-painted Santa nails for 25 lifesavers, as a countdown to Christmas, always sparked a lively debate: to count from 1 to 25 or 25 to 1. And then it would drift to whether the 1 got eaten on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, necessitating us to start eating them the last day of November.
Our tree has always been upstairs, and we have always had a carved Nativity set on the coffee table in our living room. My great-uncle carved it for my mom way back when, and we've always loved it. Even though the donkey is lopsided and gimpy.
I suppose the easiest way to sum it up would be this: I love Christmas, because Christmas is constancy.
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