It’s December 23. And we just decorated our tree.
I wish I could blame it on being busy and running for Congress and whatnot. But honestly, every year when it comes to Christmas, the Lythcott-Haimses tend to be a little less Martha Stewart and a little more Indy 500 Pit Crew: IT’S GO TIME! GET IT RIGHT! NOW!
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Growing up, my mother was more on top of things.
When I was in high school, we lived in Wisconsin, and a few weeks before Christmas each Winter we would tromp through the snowy wilderness to find and cut the perfect tree. In the Spring of my junior year, we’d gotten two kittens named Bootsie and Tiger. And by December, they were rambunctious like teenagers. So that year when we put up our tree, they leapt into it, burrowed toward the trunk, found the perfect spot, splayed their bodies across the inner boughs, and stared out at us like smug little Sphinxes.
However, Bootsie and Tiger would quickly learn that tree-sitting was not allowed. On day two, when Daddy, Mom, or I entered the living room, they knew they had to make a run for it, and sprang from their perch inside the tree, trailing lights behind them and sending ornaments rolling across the floor. That second night they got up to big fun and we woke to the sound of the tree crashing to the ground. So Mom spent much of the third night crouching behind the couch with a water bottle to spray the cats if they came even close. By the fourth day, Mom was harnessing the tree to the walls with string.
Bootsie and Tiger now had a secure hideout from which they presided over the living room, their eyes more smug than ever.
_____
The best laid plans…
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Today, Mom, Dan, Sawyer and I putter around the living room, hanging orbs of every color and size on the branches, the tiny framed pictures of the kids as little ones, the felted dancers, the wooden owls, the Black angels, and the needlepoint Santa my best friend in high school made me. A glass ball slips and crashes to the ground and I announce, “It’s not Christmas until we break an ornament!”
As we sweep it up and throw away the large shards, I appreciate the message of impermanence. The dissatisfying nature of material things. The passage of time.
We FaceTime my baby Avery, who is of course not a baby but my twenty-two-year old daughter, whom I miss fiercely yet who is right where she should be, working half a world away in the performing arts. As we chitchat about this and that, I try not to let my emotions drown me, and instead feel around in my jeans pocket for the favorite ornament that I stashed to be sure I’d get to be the one to hang it. It’s a tiny ceramic nest the color of ivory, and it cradles three ceramic pale blue eggs in which I see:
CHILDREN
&
HOME.
About a half hour into our tree-trimming, I ask mom to re-tell the story of the Christmas of 1983 with Bootsie and Tiger. To delve into the past, where the details are richly present. I also want Sawyer to hear this piece of family lore, in case he hasn’t already. And even if he has.
As Mom begins telling it, another memory blooms for her. One of battling a different set of small mammals when she and Daddy lived on the island of Martha’s Vineyard during the mid 90s – in the years that Daddy was dying from cancer. I recall talking with them on the phone from my grown-up life in California, and I’d hear about their delight in the turkeys that flocked on their lawn, and the birds that came to their feeder, and also of the squirrels who seemed to think the birdseed was for them.
So mom tells this tale again today. Of tying sturdy rope to two trees that stood on either side of the backyard and stringing the feeder on the rope where it hung about five feet off the ground. The thinking was that the birds would of course fly in, but the squirrels would not be able to make the trek. Except they could. They’d scamper on their nimble little feet across the white rope and voila, feast on the birdseed. So, my parents bought a couple of two-liter plastic Coke bottles, drained the soda out, and put a hole in the bottom. Then they threaded each bottle onto a rope so it lay horizontal, like a tree trunk in the water in a log-rolling contest. My parents were sure this would protect the bird feeder from the squirrels. But no, the squirrels learned to dance atop the bottle. So my parents bought a few more soda bottles, drained them, punched holes, added them to the lines. And still the squirrels made it across. Weeks of iteration went by.
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“Man plans, God laughs,” goes the Yiddish saying.
It’s good for us to laugh, too. Because, well, what else are we going to do?
I was on the phone with Daddy as he stared at ten plastic bottles strung in midair across their back garden with the lone column of the bird feeder housing delicious seed hanging in the very middle, and a squirrel munching away. This was just months before Daddy died. “We trained the squirrels to be acrobats!” he said.
In his voice, I heard not just laughter but admiration.
_____
We moved all the time when I was a kid, so I had to work hard to hold onto what was mine. Not just the books and clothes and toys and school things, but the people I wanted to bring forward with me to the next place. Now I’m the one staying put as my youngest leaves of her own volition.
I hang this ornament as a prayer to my sweet child to say that no matter where you are, you belong here too, always, and that this nest we’ve made together remembers and longs for you. Even as you go, which is what we want you to do.
Merry Christmas to you and yours if you celebrate it!
xo
🤗 Here’s a hug for all the people missing their people this Christmas. Or just doing their best to make it happen in busy and stressful times.
🇺🇸 Yes, I am running for Congress here in the California 16th District (Silicon Valley) and if you want to help me get my message out about a woman’s right to choose, ending gun violence, building housing, and creating a more inclusive world for our kids, please visit our campaign website (here) and make a contribution.
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Wonderful Post Julie!
We have shared Easter egg coloring with you and your family and it is lovely to get an update.
Good to see your mom too, looking good. She was in our writing group and we miss her. We are still meeting on zoom and occasionally in person.
Sending you all love.
Anne Rutherdale
Just reading this post - I love it! The memories of trees, ornaments, smug cats and squirrels. Re-remembering that in our own new world away from home we may have missed key transitions. How do we reassure our children that we both hope for them to travel, find their path, be independent and that they will always have a room, a place in our home. ❤️
“I hang this ornament as a prayer to my sweet child to say that no matter where you are, you belong here too, always, and that this nest we’ve made together remembers and longs for you. Even as you go, which is what we want you to do.” Thank you for your words to help me understand and translate my feelings.