Owls and Orrefors

I'm not sure why I decided to make stollen tonight -- oops, last night. Christmas Eve. I was taking a Christmas service for a little country church nearby, which, of course, entailed writing a sermon. And preaching it. And generally being on top of details, not always my strong suit. Then coming home to heat up some left overs before going to church with the ex and the kids. All in all, a very liturgical night.

So I'm up, doing some very unorthodox things to the bread to get it to rise and into the oven.

Though I'd had Mr. C and the DQ decorate the tree earlier, they were rather exhausted, and ended up putting only about one third of the ornaments on the tree. I realized that when I got ready to put the boxes somewhere where we wouldn't trip over them when the ex comes over tomorrow.

I mean, today.

I hadn't seen a lot of these ornaments before. Or, it would be most precise to say, I hadn't seen them in 20 years. That's when my mother put them away on the Christmas we realized Jonathan wouldn't be coming home. When my sister cleaned out my dad's house she discovered the box I hadn't taken while dad was alive.

Of course, Mom had some glass balls. But nothing else matches anything. The straw bird and ladies -- Mexican? The Orrefors glass ornaments. The Mexican metal owl. The Indian animals decorated with tiny pieces of glass. The glass girl holding balloons, probably crafted by one of our friends down the block.

Dearest mother, I know there was some kind of story to go with most of these. My mother didn't know from God -- but she did have faith in the healing power of family.

Yesterday as I ran through Target, I saw these big plastic containers, full of gold balls. Some glittered, others were shiny, but you saw them hanging on someone's tree, you would see that they had come from the same place, likely, from China.

An interior decorator would be horrified by our Christmas tree. Ornaments scattered all over, with no regard to symmetry, and no unifying theme.

One can't see grief. Memory. Or love.

But they live, ah, they live.