Decorating for Christmas

In the past, I’ve always enjoyed decorating at Christmas. But I scaled down my social contacts in 2019, due to the Covid scare, and in 2020 and 2021 I knew I wouldn’t be home for Christmas, so the boxes of decorations stayed securely in my storage space, untouched.

But this year is different. I’m planning to be here for the entire season—home for the holidays, and ready to celebrate. Since some of the Christmas activities involve having company, I’ve decided to prepare my home.

That involves decorating, something I don’t relish since I have little patience and even less artistic talent.

I have a minimalist attitude toward home décor. But decorating calls for more than the perfunctory arrangement of a wreath and one or two streamers. It called for me having to go down into my storage room and retrieve the boxes I’d stacked there out of sight and out of mind, hopefully forever. Until this Christmas, when I decided to enter the spirit of the season.

So, this week I reluctantly ventured down and rummaged around for the boxes I knew were there. Casting aside the garden equipment, snow shovels and bags of out-of-date clothing, I eventually unearthed two large boxes labelled ‘Christmas Decorations’.

They were too unwieldy to heft up the stairs, so I had to split the contents into three bags and carry them up one by one. Having made it into my front room, I dumped everything on the floor and grouped the assortment into piles I hoped would make sense.

I sorted the stuff into lights, balls and miscellaneous items. The artificial tree deserved a category of its own, so I set it aside.

Gradually, the process I had carried out for years came back to me. The tree had always come first, I remembered, and once done, I would use the extra streamers, balls, and lights to decorate the rest of the room.

That was two days ago—once out of their boxes, the collection of items took on a life of their own. Each article was infused with memories, causing me to stop, muse and remember. It was an extremely time-consuming process.

Here was the heart shaped ornament my late husband gave me one Christmas before we were married, scripted with the words in gold, “Christmas is Love”. I remembered his face when I opened the box, and his smile when I whooped for joy.

Here was the miniature lacy wreath my sister made and fastened with embroidery thread to a present she gave me many years ago. And here is the box of red and gold glass orbs that I splurged on one Christmas when I hardly had a spare penny to my name.

It’s no wonder that this is taking such a long time, this session of decorating that was to take only one afternoon. Somehow it has morphed into an extravaganza of memories and flashbacks that threaten to expand into several days.

I’m sure I’m not alone. Holidays bring holiday memories, and decorating at Christmas often brings a sense of bittersweet nostalgia for precious times long gone, perhaps even people who were once close but are now not here.

My memories of Christmas always feature my mother, who from my earliest recollection, loved the holiday season, and was a master at Christmas preparations. Although she was Canadian born, her family observed many old country traditions, and she adapted them to form her own unique approach to Christmas.

She was a superb cook and baked her Christmas cake in November so that it could ripen for several weeks. It seemed to me that all of December was devoted to baking and preparing for Christmas.

Decorating was an important part of that. She had few resources but managed to create a festive atmosphere in our home. With her encouragement and miles and miles of red and green crepe paper, we festooned our house with streamers, paper bows and paper bells.

Many things have changed. Our family is scattered over two provinces and it’s not possible to have everyone together now. But those memories of my mother and our early childhood is a legacy I carry with me today, especially as I bring out the Christmas boxes and start to decorate.