prayerful of dreams - 2008-06-28
preschool princess - 2008-06-16
life with my sweetheart - 2008-04-29
the fast approach of four - 2008-04-12
lighting up my own life - 2008-03-08
2002-12-02 - 11:16 a.m.
All my life, I dreamed one dream. And then I had to learn to let that one go, and dream smaller. Dream more real. Dream closer to home, and so I tried. and I did. and then I dreamed my new house dream into real, and dreamed my perfect holiday, with my perfect Christmas tree,
and I found a beautiful ice covered Spanish Fir, that was 8 feet tall, with white lights, and though it was fake, it looked like a prom queen amidst all the other poor excuses for Christmas trees and so, of course,I had to have it.
Last weekend, I set about to decorate my perfect tree. in my scaled down, dream house, for my very first christmas ~in the blue and white house~ celebrating my " this is as good as it gets" reality.
I envisioned my tree in a twinkling of white. The ice tipped ends, give it a subtle shimmering iridescent winterlit glow. ad so, I wanted to go with a blue and white theme, with lots of glittering stars. I found white and silver glittery snowflakes and christmas stars, and exquisite glass ornaments, in silver and pale blue and electric blue and pearl white. Then I added some white floral sprays,and irridescent silver sprays, and silver beaded trim, and voila, a shimmering spectacle of white's and blue's with silver accessories. It was simple and elegant, and overpriced but not overglam. It was, in essense. the perfect tree. everyone who saw it, exclaimed breathlessly ," oh what a beautiful tree! " It was the kind of tree that noone ever has, because everyone else always clutter's there trees up with a mismatch of kitschy hallmark type ornaments, and lame monogramed ones from 1982 that started to fade and rust in 1983.
I felt a certain smug pride in my elegantly beautiful tree.
that was, until last night.
When I stopped by my sisters house. I dropped by unexpectedly, just to say hi. In the freezing cold, as I walked towards the house, through the front window, i could see the family scene set like a nativity. My sister sat nursing her 4 month old baby, in front of her christmas tree. The multi coloured lights of her tree fell across her face, in a kalediscope of colours. The baby nursed happily as greens and reds and yellows danced on her cheek. My 2 year old niece pirohuetted in front of the tree, her overalls undone,the snaps all open, one strap hanging down. When I stepped inside, and exclaimed over the tree, my little niece's face beamed with pride! She gleefully showed me all the tiny ornaments that she had hung perfectly on the big lower branches of the tree. It was bursting with little ornaments, literally hundreds of unique pieces. Then my brother in law told me, that every year they gift each other with a special ornament,"our first christmas" "baby's first christmas" , "baby's 2nd christmas,""kitten's first christmas" etc etc.. all the milestone ones, the patchwork of my sister's life on that tree, ornaments from when we were children, ornaments from there courtship and through the subseqent years, ornaments with real flesh and blood stories, a history of an entire family, ornaments with meaning.And on top of it all, sits a large handmade quilted angel, the kind I would never have wanted. She prays reverently as she adorns the top of their family tree. My little blonde ringleted niece told me in hushed tones of great reverie, about the "ain- jelllll " that she helped place atop the tree.
I looked again at their tree.
and I remembered my tree.
and my sister said again, how beautiful my tree was, because it was so elegant and perfect.
My tree was just an illusion. A vapid girl, in a ball gown.
Suddenly, I realized that the most beautiful tree of all, was the one in front of me.
A Christmas tree, in a small livingroom, in an ordinary house, filled with overflowing toyboxes and recklessly strewn about baby dolls, in the house that smelled of warm family dinners,served behind frosted glass windowpanes on a freezing cold night. While, inside the little house, the sweet baby nurses contendly and the 2 year old scampers around like a little pixie getting into much merriment and mischief.
and then it was time for me to go, and I had to step back out, into the cold night. wishing with a penetrable ache for an old dream new again.
old starlight - new starbright
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