The Ornaments

I wrote this several years ago. Its about Christmas and teenagers.

My seventeen-year-old daughter, DaNae, and I got our Christmas tree this weekend. I tortured myself in the dungeons of Wal-Mart buying eggnog, Tylenol, and a shopping cart full of things not on my list. The checkout stands from hell loomed before me. I picked the most hellacious line. Mrs. Bigfoot, a dumpling of a woman, had three carts with $400 worth of crap. Weighted down with shortcomings, such as lack of patience, I abandoned my cart behind her, and traipsed through bathrobes and books. By the time I checked out ($120) I had consumed a power drink, two Claussen pickles, and three mints.


When I got home, DaNae and her friend Shawn had already dragged a reluctant tree into the living room and manhandled it into the stand. Shawn went home, and DaNae and I retrieved the three boxes of Christmas goodies we stash at the tip-top of our pantry cabinets. Out of the boxes came the snowmen, nutcrackers, singing Santa clauses, a cow that moos merry Christmas, stuffed bears the size of pillows, angels, a funny little elf, old ribbons, and ornaments for the tree. One chocolate truffle, my son Nik’s, which he didn’t eat last year because we fought over the tree and he decided to hate the holiday, sat lonely in its box.

Our reluctant teenage tree, tall and rowdy, rebelled against us. Perhaps its mother hadn’t explained the greatest thing a tree could grow up to be was a Christmas tree. Maybe it wanted to wear the green, red, and yellow jalapeno lights that we decided to put in the kitchen windows. Whatever the cause, it waxed, waned, and fell on us with a crash of glass. Three ornaments died.

I held it in check as DaNae dashed off the ornaments. Together we lay it on its side and with a hammer spanked its bottom to the pain in the ass tree stand we argue with every year. We twisted screws, longed for glue or duck tape, even string to hang it with.

We leaned it slightly (I’m sure no one will notice) into the window and redecorated it. Our collection of ornaments grows every year, and each one evokes delicate memories of yesterdays. Nik used to move his little train along the strands of lights, and DaNae loved to play with the icicle man. It’s still her favorite. And together they’d work out their grief over their dad’s death by playing with nutcrackers turned into dolls, saying, sister, dad has died but we have grandma and grampa now. Or brother, let’s go to the North Pole and visit dad. He’s an angel.

When I came home this afternoon, the snowmen had moved to the windowsill of their own volition, looking longingly out as if they waited for their siblings to fall from the sky and whiten the outside trees. The stuffed bears jumped on the couch as if it were a trampoline, while the snowboard snowmen did flips and kickers off the piano. The icicle man slipped and slided down branches on the tree, shouting, “Wee, this is fun,” and the train buzzed along the lights with a chug-a-lug and a toot of its horn. The funny little elf danced a jig by an empty bottle of sparkling cider.

The littlest nutcrackers skirmished on the rug. The fisher-cracker with his red hat and long pole sat next to the aquarium. Two fish have gone missing. The king with his crown and red cape stood by the snow queen with the light up crown. The drummer drummed next to the pied piper, and the singing Santa bellowed out “Come they told me parumpapumpum” in harmony with the cow. The red and the green swordsmen parried on the coffee table, with an “On guard nut” and “Take that you cracker.” The Mexican nutcracker sang feliz navida, off key, to an angel hanging on the tree. She glanced glass smiles at him, crystal laughs sparkling out her mouth. The football player jumped and jumped for the 49er football hanging on a middle branch shouting, “Why can’t I be a black nutcracker like Jerry Rice so I can catch the football and take it over the top of the tree for a touchdown.”

The oldest nutcracker, he has a missing arm and broken jaw, stood his post by the door. An empty chocolate truffle box lay beside him. Chocolate smeared his red lips.