Well, even though I have a little tree, I haven’t finished decorating it yet. I ran into a little bit of a snag when I opened the boxes of ornaments. These are the same ornaments that have decorated the family tree for many decades; perhaps even generations. I found that every ornament that I saw brought back powerful memories of my family, and the sense of loss from having both of my parents taken from me so early in my life, such a short time ago, made it difficult to actually decorate the tree.
I know I’ll get through it, and the tree WILL get decorated, but it is going to take a long time to do it! I think now I have a better understanding of how emotional my mother would get at Christmas time, when she would decorate the tree. Her mother had made many of the ornaments, and so has she. It truly IS a family tree, and right now there isn’t much family around to enjoy it. Maybe it’s time I started thinking about taking on a family of my own and stop rattling around by myself in this big old farmhouse.