There's always an annual self-debate within the walls of La Casa del Terror: to decorate for Christmas, or not to decorate? That is the question. Do I lug out the storage container full of ornaments, garlands and figurines, or do I spare myself the bother? After all, I live alone and don't get many visitors (at least not after the Halloween Movie Bash), so the only person who will see these festive knickknacks will be me and the Girlish Girls, who could not possibly care less--unless I roll the tree in catnip, they'll not be roused to action.
But then I take a walk around my neighborhood, and the debate rapidly ends.
There are a lot of single-family homes in my hood, and many of the owners go all out at Christmastime. From sequential lights rimming the rooftops to inflatable snowmen tucked onto too-small front porches to life-sized illuminated figures of Jesus, Joseph and the Virgin Mary, these homeowners charge into the holiday season with admirable, even enviable vigor. If they can go all out like that, can't I spare a minute or three to dig in my closet and set up a tree? Especially since no one else in my particular apartment building seems to have decorated at all?
So the debate, then, boils down not to whether or not to decorate for Christmas, but the degree to which I decorate: shall I dust off the artificial pine, or will some vintage figurines suffice? Last year, the latter was the case. I set up a small display in the living room, smiled at it occasionally and dismantled it before the sun had set on New Year's Day. But this year, when I could sincerely use some extra cheer and would rather spend the whole season in bed? It would have been easy to blow off decorating entirely. Really, it would have. And it wouldn't have been a network television first, either.
Instead, on Thanksgiving Day, when I was home alone for the first time ever (because Mom's employers, in their eternal wisdom, scheduled her to work both Wednesday second shift and Thursday first shift, thus delaying any cooking till Thanksgiving evening--and don't even ask me why I didn't cook for her: she really enjoys making holiday meals for her sons and likely wouldn't touch any poultry I roasted for her benefit), I lugged out the three-foot-tall wire tree (still haven't upgraded to an antique aluminum tree), popped the top off the clay-green storage container with the Christmas decorations and popped on appropriate holiday music--A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, in this instance. And, over the course of a couple of hours, I transformed La Casa del Terror into a winter wonderland.
Okay, so my apartment isn't quite ready for a presidential visit or scrutiny by Martha Stewart--unless Martha is really into The Nightmare Before Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in which case she might actually dig it. Under the lamp in the living room, Jack Skellington and Sally dolls keep watch over Clarice, Yukon Cornelius and King Moonracer figurines. In the kitchen, a blue-and-silver garland with gifts evenly spaced dangles over the windows while the resin bass ornament (given to me by Mom to remind me of Dad, as if I could forget him) guards the doorway and an angel in gold lame watches from atop the fridge and the Frankenstein Monster, resplendent in a Santa cap, holds down the microwave.
And then there's the bookcase in the southeast corner of the living room, which is currently covered, from left to right and left again, with holiday cards from friends near and far, with animals decorating a pine tree, a Victorian girl writing Santa, purple and silver snowflakes, a pair of imposing nutcrackers, a serene waterfall, a collection of festive puppies, shining deer, a bow from a "Bettie Page in Bondage" alarm clock (which now resides atop my SuperDisk drive, quietly ticking away the time), and lots and lots of snowmen (can one ever have enough?).
And on the top shelf of this bookcase, where Mom's tin dollhouse can usually be found, stands the Christmas tree, such as it is. There are many little figures surrounding it, from hand-painted Santas to elves to Mom's favorite childhood toy, Molly the Dolly. But the tree itself is small--only three feet tall--so I usually have many more ornaments than I have branches. A couple of themes, then, must be selected from the assortment in the storage container. Carousel horses? Cartoon characters? Kittens? Nothing more than shiny balls? All have been past choices, and all served me well. This year, though, I went with an eclectic selection of superheroes (Batman, Wonder Woman, the Tick), personal faves (a holiday unicorn, a chrome-plated Kris Kringle) and a new addition or two (Bettie Page in a leopard-print bikini).
Oh. And angels. Lots and lots of angels.
I've always liked angels, and my Christmas trees have always reflected that--from small porcelain angels found in department stores to angels way too big for this little tree but too pretty to keep in storage to tiny gold cherubs to a cookie-colored angel, cradling a dove in her delicate hands, that had been intended to be given as a gift to a woman I thought I loved at the time, but which wound up staying with me anyway. (Time has healed that, if not all, wounds.)
The most special angel on my tree, though, is also arguably the cheapest: a small cardboard girl, covered in what looks like silver chain mail and holding a tiny candle in each of her pipe-cleaner hands. She's not the largest angel on my tree, nor the most beautiful, nor in the best of shape, her wings held on by Scotch tape. But this humble girl, Angelique by name, always gets the center spot on the front of the tree in those years when I bother to put a tree up, because she was found in a tin can in the wreckage of Grandma's house after it had burned to the ground on a cold February morning. The can contained many decorations that make the tree every year, and more than one angel.
But Angelique is a dead ringer for the angel my parents put on their tree every year--an angel purchased at Jules Five & Dime on Milwaukee Avenue, where Mom had worked as a teen and which is still in business just down the street from the Congress Theatre and just up the street from White Castle. Angelique was a sister to my parents' angel. She was family and deserved to be honored as such. And so she is.
I may be the only person who sees my holiday decorations this year, it's true. But as light my pine-scented candles from Walgreen's (best to be found, I tell you) and go through my demented collection of Christmas programs, from the recent Saturday Night Live clip show to Mr. Krueger's Christmas, a strange half-hour sponsored by the Mormon Church and starring Jimmy Stewart (he has a cat named George--get it?), to the joyfully painful experience that is The Star Wars Holiday Special (if you ever want to feel better about your life, watch this show and be glad you had nothing to do with it), I'll look up from time to time and check out my surroundings, if only momentarily. The tree. The angels. And, for those moments, at least, I'll smile and give myself a damn break. And if this is as good as my life gets, though I certainly hope for more and for better, I don't have too much to complain about. So I won't. For a change. My gift to you. And to myself.
Peace to you and yours this holiday season.
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