The Absent Uncle: That time of year.

Maybe last week it would have started, maybe the week before, it depends on how the dates fell. Just after Thanksgiving. Getting out the boxes. Packed with the Christmas decorations, always stored the same, possibly with some adjustments made for new additions – but, the time-honored packing just never varied a lot.   

With each box you knew what you were going to find. A box full of memories.

Our extended family started to share their special home decorations this year in a combined text thread to all the cousins. It all looks so familiar, regardless of the home it comes from. 

I so remember helping my mom unpack those boxes. Stringing out the lights, making sure all bulbs were working. Getting out the ornaments and putting them in a basket to be “hooked” and placed just so. Putting up the tree – sometime in my early teen years mom had made the transition from a fresh-cut tree to an artificial one – so in a way that artificial one reinforced and simplified the process. No more trying find a tree of the right height, one without a “bad” side, and the never ending getting it in the stand and making it straight. That “fake” tree made it simple. 

As I got older, I was the tall guy. Lights were assigned to me. Yeah, right. “Make sure you get them spaced out; make sure the colors are not close; I think you aren’t listening; well, I guess that is OK”. It was just part of the process.

Hang the ornaments – the same ones I had seen my whole life. That “fake” tree really helped – you could bend the branches to make the big ones fit, get the ornament or two that had movement from the heat of the bulb, and to give special prominence to all of our favorites. I learned the techniques necessary and hung them with care. 

We were not a big tinsel family – getting tinsel off a “fake” tree is difficult and therefore impractical.   

But mom and I – with some help from my dad – finished the job, got the boxes out of the way, and at last – there it was. Our Christmas tree! Treasured and loved. Sure, presents to be added, other decorations throughout the house, but that Christmas tree…that Christmas tree will never be forgotten. Ever.