The Back-of-the-Tree Ornament

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Happy Thanksgiving to all!! This is a story I wrote about 5-6 years ago. The pecan Santa hangs in a place of honor on my tree.



The Back-of-the-Tree Ornament



The old man sat in the old overstuffed chair, sipping his apple cider with brandy, and listening to Jingle Bell Rock playing softly in the background. As he had always done, he had put up his Christmas tree, set out a few of the Dickens village buildings and figurines, and set up the crockpot with apple cider and mulling spices. It was harder now. Since his wife had died, it had taken more energy every year to put up the display she had so loved. But still he set the little skaters on the mirror with the magnets so they appeared to skate over a frozen pond. He arranged the fluffy cotton to simulate snow. He decorated the tree as it had always been decorated, pausing now and then with ornaments to recall where they had been purchased. Always, one or more of the children had arrived with their own children, and a barely controlled chaos had reigned. Real Christmas. But this year, there were no children. The arcs of their lives had led them all in separate directions this year, so there were no small children running around, no boisterous play, no spilled eggnog. They had not meant to leave him alone at this time of year, but had just not coordinated their lives so that someone would be with him.



The little pecan Santa hung on the back of the tree, back where the most bedraggled ornaments, those too unattractive to proudly display, hung in forlorn array. Sure, his felt was pretty dingy, and one eyebrow had long since disappeared in a mass of tissue paper. It probably happened when they quit wrapping him individually, and started just putting him in the bottom of the ornament box with the rest of the “unbreakable” ornaments. He thought it was miraculous he has retained his hat and beard.



It had not always been this way. He still remembered when he was new. The old man, then a little boy, had come rushing home from the small kindergarten with his newly made treasure. Starting with a pecan, ordinary enough by itself, he had followed the instructions of the teacher and added pieces she had cut out and brought with her from home. First, there was a white beard, the felt flowing down below the point of the pecan. Then had come a white mustache shaped like a woman’s upper lip, then a jaunty white and red double-pasted hat. The eyes were just Magic Marker. A small loop of fishing line was glued on top behind the hat so that a hook could be used to hang the ornament.



The tree was already up, and the little pecan Santa was soon hung in a prominent place in the front of the tree peering between strands of carefully hung tinsel, surrounded by bubble lights, little horns that actually blew, and tinkling bells. A blinking light nearby made it look like he was winking. It was a grand holiday, with the little boy getting a cowboy outfit with a real cap pistol, the too-large pajamas from his grandmother that came every year, and a toy microscope. The family sat down together on Christmas Eve, the Father wearing his usual red vest that did not quite meet over his middle, and torturing the children by allowing them to open only one present that night after the reading of the Christmas story from his World War II Bible as well as The Night Before Christmas. The children had spent days picking out the one present that could not wait until Christmas morning, feeling the outside of the packages, gently shaking them when not being observed, and trying to divine whether greater time spent in decorating the packages meant a more valuable gift. Father was notorious for spending a lot of time on a package that was a minor gift just to throw them off track.



The tree itself was the usual minor miracle that the boy’s parents put together. It was always a large tree, reaching nearly to the ceiling, even when they lived in the converted classroom building with 14 foot ceilings. If it did not come within a foot of the ceiling, Father dismissed it as a “table model”. The lights were always strung with great care, ensuring that many were deep inside on the branches to give the tree a greater feeling of depth. Some were brought out to branch tips, and special bulbs were inserted - bubble lights, flickering flames, small lighted Santa Clauses and snowmen. Ornaments were unwrapped, hooked, and hung with care, often with their history being recounted. Then individual real metal tinsel strands were draped carefully over each branch. Underneath was the tree skirt, a red tablecloth with embroidered signatures of attendees at a long-ago Christmas dinner. And then the packages began to show up, large boxes, small boxes, small rolls, and odd-shaped lumps, all with the obsessive attention to package decoration that Father always used. They piled up around the tree until they began to fall over one another.



That first Christmas morning, the little pecan Santa watched as the older children distributed the packages to the family. The older children soon shouldered out the younger ones because they were too slow in the distribution process, delaying the moments of discovery. Packages were opened in order of age, and everyone watched the others open their gifts, the children trying to be polite while secretly just wanting to get on to their own next treat. Wrapping paper piled up in a giant hill, and the better bows were put aside for re-use next year. When all the gifts had been opened, the wrapping paper was taken to the trash, glitter was brushed up, and the gifts were stacked around for display to visiting friends later in the day, except for the ones that simply could not wait for use. The smell of Christmas dinner soon began drifting through the house.



As the years passed, the little Santa remained on the tree, usually close to the front. But it no longer occupied the place of honor. Other hand-made ornaments were added, and after Father’s death Mother began adding ornaments from her travels. The old man had never forgotten the little ornament, but left it where it had always been. Retrieval would have required getting it off the tree at Christmas, an unthinkable insult to Mother, or else going through all the ornaments to find it later. The family valued sentimental things enough that the little pecan Santa was never in danger of being discarded.



Eventually, Mother also died, and her things were distributed. The old man got the little ornament and always hung it, but it usually ended up on the back of the tree, displaced there by his own travel treasures, balls signed by family members and friends, and fancy blown ornaments represent world architectural marvels. He and his wife had had three children of their own, so treasures from the children began to pile up as well. Each Christmas resulted in more handmade Santas, reindeer, snowmen, and other traditional figures. And each year the little pecan Santa got pushed farther and farther to the back of the tree, not forgotten, just demoted. By now he was nearly 70 years old.



The years weighed heavily on the old man, this year as never before. His once confident walk had turned to a shuffle in old slippers. His clear blue eyes were now rheumy and seemed unfocused. Without his glasses, he could not even tell what time it was. Retirement with his wife had seemed to hold endless possibilities, but cancer had ended that dream. Now, he sipped his cider and thought about how much better it would be if he put more brandy in the next one. No longer looking forward to a future of wonderful possibilities, he felt he was just waiting, perhaps even hoping, for death to overcome him.



As he slipped into his chair in front of the tree, he found himself, as so often happened now, wandering back through the times he had seen, wraiths of Christmases past. He remembered wonderful feasts: the time they tried a goose that ended up swimming in fat, the time he cooked a suckling pig and could not get the oven door completely closed, the time they had won the lottery for the Christmas Eve and Day package at Yosemite. Now THERE was a feast! As his mind wandered, his eyes wandered over the tree, visually blessing each ornament. And then he looked more carefully and saw the little pecan Santa hanging forlornly on a back branch. Slowly, he got up and shuffled to the tree. He gently unhooked the Santa from its branch, and brought it around to a prominent place in the front, right next to a bubble light and its cheery red glow. He hung it and stood there smiling distantly for a moment. He sat down back down with just a brandy this time, and began to daydream of Christmases past, past triumphs, past disappointments, and past loves. As happened all too often, he drifted off into a nap. The little pecan Santa looked across the room. He knew they would soon be going off together, and wondered where that would be for a pecan Santa with one missing eyebrow.

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Comments

[Lucie]

Wonderful
Thank you for creating and sharing this literary gem!