Leah is on the rug in the foyer, licking her paws nonstop. The terrier mix is hard at work giving herself a… mani? pedi? Your guess is as good as mine, but she draws my attention to something on the floor next to the door, near the crack that lets the cold air in. I bend down and discover that Baby Jesus has fallen out of the trash bag I took out earlier. Good heavens. It feels like a sign.
He’s made of pottery and painted brown to look like wood. I bought him in Barcelona, Spain, the first Christmas I was married. He is part of a creche set, and if you look closely, you notice he has the vacant gaze of a Roman statue, and now, with a major chip out of his manger, Baby J has to go.
I feel a little squeamish dispensing with Jesus (or trying to). It’s similar to deciding what to do with the eight Bibles you’ve accumulated.
Leave them in hotel rooms, Gideon!
But I never had a good surface area on which to display the creche, and over the decades, the cows lost their horns; Mary seems to have had a MOHS procedure on her nose, and her halo is chipped. Joseph, inordinately tall, can’t stand up unassisted now. The arm he extends down toward the manger looks like he’s saying, “Woah Nelly…” not, “Behold the King of kings.”
I’ve been hanging on to the whole broken holy family because that’s what I do– hang on to family– only in some sense of late that has become the family of man.
Hello you.
Thanks to the internet, I’ve been reconnecting with people I knew only briefly, say in eighth grade, or tangentially, as in my best friend’s friend, and those rediscovered relationships feel very much like Christmas, like the most unanticipated of gifts. Maybe it’s because who we grew up with shaped who we became, and there are days, or moments anyway, where reconnecting with our points of origin feels disarming, even charming.
Eventually, we grow up, and our life companions become our kids. I bought each of my children a Christmas ornament the year they were born and one every year thereafter until they left home. So, each child took a collection of memories from childhood into their future. Audra’s ornaments were always a bell of some kind—silver, gold. Andrew’s were made of china—a polar bear, a reindeer, and Emily’s ornaments were made of crystal—stars, icicles, and angels. That’s nearly 60 ornaments that have come and gone from my tree, which I guess means 60 years of parenting in a way. It’s a 60-year big hole, anyway. Chicxulub comes to mind—the asteroid that had been on a collision course with the Earth for centuries and then left a hole nearly 100 miles wide and at least 12 miles deep.
That sounds about right.
The tree is out on the porch waiting for recycling. When I was little, we cut our tree down from the pasture, but the selection was limited to scraggly white pines. We carried our choice back to the house, with its white shingles and green shutters, and watched my father drill holes in the trunk he then filled with extra branches he’d trimmed in the woods. Eventually, the tree was lush and beautiful. The first artificial Christmas tree!
I decide to keep Mary and one of the cows from the original creche as I finish packing away Christmas. Who hasn’t had MOHS, and who doesn’t have a broken halo? I also keep the angel because who doesn’t need an extra angel?
I vow I will throw out everything that hasn’t been used this year—the rejected decorations left in the 12 storage boxes in the linen closet— again… The garish ornaments from friends I dearly love, the balls from the year I thought I’d do Christmas in blue and white….
I cram all the bows in a box, knowing I have friends who put their bows away stuffed with tissue to retain their shape. Friends who don’t find candles in the box labeled garlands. And who don’t find the box marked “precious kids’ ornaments” empty. But holidays evolve, as do planets, solar systems, feelings, and family.
Christmas has changed for me in many ways and in other ways, not at all. This year, the tree had new ornaments filling out the bare spots where the bells, polar bears, and crystal angels once hung. Six hand-sewn wives of Henry the Eighth, which I bought in London, take their place, plus King Henry himself, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. But the truth is that most of those boxes I planned to eliminate are back in the closet. I just smush the stuff in tighter so it appears consolidated.
I’ll let go of more next year, and one day, I will let go of everything. We all will.
But today, I hang on to the love story we just celebrated, to the lives that I made, to every sacred reminder of the life that made me.
Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.
Dan Wolf says
In an overdue fit of decluttering virtue delayed well past Epiphany, I took all the ornaments off the tree last night around midnight. Today, doing my small part to preserve a burning planet, I’m chopping up the tree to go in the garden waste recycling bin. This small offering of yours feels just about right to me, and I thank you for sharing it, Laura.
Laura J Oliver says
Ah, you’re an example to all of us, Dan! Thanks so much for writing!
Marcia P. Kirby says
Laura, we are kindred spirits. I, too, have a very difficult time ridding myself of Christmas decorations, particularly those from my childhood. My creche set was my mother’s long before I was born – perhaps when she was a child. The manger long ago disintegrated, never to be replaced; Baby Jesus disappeared one year only to appear in a wayward box the following year. The other figurines are chipped (didn’t realize MOHS surgery was so popular that long ago!!) and scratched, but I will never willingly part with any of them. I, too, continue to cram the same boxes back onto the shelves each January, saying “Next year.” Your last two paragraphs say it all. May you continue to inspire us each Sunday for many years to come!
Laura J Oliver says
That’s a lovely thought. Thanks so much! And I like the way your Baby Jesus reappeared after going missing. Sounds like a story to me!
Jan Bohn says
Boy, I can relate! I have boxes and boxes and boxes of Christmas things. This year due to illness in the family only a fraction made it out of the boxes but the few visitors we had didn’t notice the paucity. Your next to last sentence is the true one. Happy New Year.
Laura J Oliver says
I’m sure there was no paucity at all–not of the things that mattered. Wishing you a happy, healthy New Year!
Thomas Knight says
We think we heard the song “I saw Laura trashing Santa Claus!” Quite sure it was on WCAI Tom Knight
Laura J Oliver says
Thanks for reading and all best in the New Year.
Michael Pullen says
Another Christmas gift from your generous store just arrived to my great delight. I’ll keep this one close to heart, in the good company of many others.
Laura J Oliver says
Thank you for another gift as well, Michael.
Nancy Prendergast says
Another wonderful piece, Laura. I wondered where your essay would wander when Baby Jesus is found in the doorway. But putting myself in your hands always results in a thought-provoking voyage. Thank you!
Laura J Oliver says
You wondered and so did I! Writing is a mysterious process. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year, Nancy.
Amy Steward says
Laura:
Lovely. I,like you, grapple with letting go of all these memories. I am keeping baby Jesus though as one Christmas morning he ended up in T-Rex mouth in the manger due to the creativity of my youngest child. When I put him in the crèche on Christmas morning each year I remember. It’s a favorite family memory. Keep your stories coming! You inspire me to keep compiling mine.
Laura J Oliver says
Thank you, Amy! Everything is story, and everything else is sharing them.