Deck the Halls (Just a Little) 12.16.20

When I was preparing to move 4 years ago I opened the hallway closet containing most of my holiday decor and channeling my inner FLOTUS, said to myself, “You know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” And so the ornaments got left behind and are now hopefully hanging on a tree in a house full of children, perhaps one with a precocious little boy who is inspecting them closely and sniffing, “Well, they’re not Christopher Radko,” before turning smartly on his Coach trainers to go to the kitchen and check up on the holiday baking activities (“You call these sand tarts?”)

I did take two Yuletide items with me when I moved. One is the stocking that I’ve written about before. The other is this little tinsel tree that was purchased by my mother before I was born. Longtime Corpus Christians may remember there was an exquisite little gift shop in The Village called Jean-Marie. Before that they were in the building across Doddridge St. (next to Chung Mei) where this came from. Every holiday season they would have a tree right in the middle of the store with the most beautiful one-of-kind ornaments for purchase. Many of the ornaments we had on our trees growing up came from there. But back to the little tinsel tree; I often wonder what possessed my mother to buy it. If I had to guess she probably bought it on December 26th. Julia appreciated nice things, but she appreciated a bargain even more.

And so now this shiny little tree standing no more than 10″ tall is all I need to conjure up over 60 years of Christmas memories and that to me is the very definition of a keepsake. And the practical side of me appreciates the fact that it takes all of 10 minutes to put it up and, more importantly, just as long to take it down.

And for those of you decorating a tree with a topper that scrapes the ceiling, I applaud your vision and determination and would love nothing more than to be invited over (masked and socially distanced of course) to admire it over a cup of eggnog. And if there aren’t any Christopher Radko ornaments on it I’ll just keep that observation to myself though I will critique your sand tarts.