Sans Fig Leaf
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"Upon the highest bough"
14 December, 2006
When I was very young, our family had a star to go atop the Christmas tree. It consisted of a tin frame in the shape of a five-point star, wound round and round with silvery tinsel. I think it had a single lightbulb in the middle, with some kind of shiny reflector behind the bulb. This was in the early sixties, before the advent of mini lights. Christmas tree lights were still screw-in bulbs at the time. There were the "new style" lights, which were about the size of those small bulbs you can still find in stores for "night lights." Then there were the older style, which were slightly smaller and were octagonal in cross-section. I think the star took the older style bulb, which meant that it was a hand-me-down from my grandparents or great-grandparents.
When I was in grade school the stores stopped carrying the older style bulbs. My folks bought some newer stings of lights and a new tree topper. The new tree topper was an angel, or rather a picture of an angel printed on cardboard. The angel was surrounded by a spray of angel-hair with a single lightbulb behind it.The angel-hair stuff picked up the light from the bulb, so the angel appeared to be surrounded by a heavenly glow.
At the time I thought the angel was cooler than the old star had been. It seemed more modern, somehow. I didn't think much about the star for years and years afterward.
Until Christmas season 1991, to be exact. Ray and I had been living together only a couple months and were preparing to celebrate our first Christmas in our home. For a variety of reasons we were very strapped for cash. We were looking around a store for inexpensive decorations, and we found a little silver star. The frame was plastic instead of tin. Instead of a single screw-in bulb it had about ten mini lights. It reminded me instantly of the old star, and I had to have it.
As I started to tell Ray how it was just like the first tree topper I could remember, he told me that it was just like a tree topper his parents had owned when he was very small. And he insisted that we had to have it. Fortunately, it was well within our budget.
A few years later I found a bigger, glitzier star, which I thought went well with our slightly less tiny apartment and larger tree. Ray agreed to the new star only on the condition that we hang the old one in a window or something. The little star needed to be part of our decorations every year, so we would remember that first Christmas together, he said.
And it has been part of my decorations in one way or another every year since, with only one exception. The year Ray died, just six weeks before Chrismas, I couldn't quite face unpacking all the ornaments without him. Even a year later when I started going through them I found myself being far more emotional than I expected.
The first Christmas after Michael and I moved in together, I told him the story of the star. And he had to tell me that the moment I pulled it out of it's box, the first thing he thought was that it looked exactly like one his parents owned when he was little.
Certain people would try to assign some significance to that coincidence. I think the only significance is that putting stars on top of Christmas trees has been a fairly common practice for a number of years, and that most couples just starting their families are on limited budgets. Therefore cheap, tinselly stars are a common first topper.
It's a silly little star, kind of tacky looking. It's lost some of its tinsel. The part that's supposed to connect to the tree top broke off a long time ago (though since I usually hang it in a window, that doesn't matter). Despite all that, it's one of my favorite decorations. I can't look at it without remembering that first Christmas with Ray, or the joy and anticipation I felt as a small child when Christmas rolled around. Sometimes when I look at it, I find myself trying to imagine Ray or Michael as small children, opening presents on Christmas morning.
It's not just the specific memories that make the star valuable to me. Just as when Ray said he wanted it as a reminder of our first Christmas he didn't just mean to remember what happened, but also to think about how far we had come since.
Some people have the mistaken notion that thinking about one's past is just silly nostalgia. Or that remembering the way things were detracts from our ability to get along in the present, let alone plan for the future.
They couldn't be more wrong. As life goes on we change, we grow, and we learn new things about ourselves and each other. When we look back on that process, we can see patterns that can help us avoid problems in the future, or to speed us along our way. You can't learn from your mistakes if you don't examine those mistakes and their consequences.
Only those willing to assess themselves honestly--good points and bad--and take an equally hard look at their life's journey, have any hope of learning the lessons necessary to take control of their own fate and reach the pinnacle of their potential.
--John Fletcher
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