love thursday: tiffany’s tree

When we were in seventh grade, several of my girlfriends and I played Secret Santa to each other. One day just before Christmas, probably during finals week, we gathered in the courtyard of Goddard Jr. High (it must have been a warmish day) and exchanged our gifts. This was 13 years ago, so I have no idea how many of us were involved or what I gave. However, my friend Tiffany had made a little tree out of coat hangers, green-and-blue tinsel garland and colored lights, and that’s what I received that day.

Thirteen years, two continents, a wedding and half a dozen moves  later, that little tree is still going strong. It was the first Christmas touch I pulled out this year, actually. It sits on top of the refrigerator, where it sat at my parents’ house each Christmas until I graduated college and moved to a place of my own. It twinkles cheerily, red and green and orange and pink and blue. And it reminds me of old friends, of traditions, of Christmases past, and of the quiet wonder of the season.

There’s a pile of wrapped gifts in the corner of my living room, just waiting for us to put up the tree so they can nestle under it. There are jingle-bell hangers on doorknobs, and stockings dangling from the mantel above our (fake) fireplace, and six boxes of decorations just waiting to be festooned about. There’s a Christmas-tree teapot I bought from Amanda, and a book of Advent readings that I pull out every year. And there is LOTS of Christmas music – James Taylor is currently crooning.

Welcome, season of Advent and Christmas. And welcome back, little tree. It’s good to see your coloured-twinkly face again.