The Tree in the Living Room Window

I don't remember when Grandma put her Christmas tree up for the first time. It must have been in the late '70s, sometime after Mom had, while Grandma was in the hospital for an extended stay, cleaned her house from one end to the other, top to bottom. (Grandma, a master hoarder, had "treasures" stacked to the ceiling throughout her cottage. She was, um, "surprised" when she got home and found most of the junk thrown out and the walls freshly painted by her grandsons.)

The tree was not much more than a foot tall and made of molded green plastic, which mom had modified it a bit by wrapping it in small colored lights, a gold garland and a few ornaments held on with twist ties. Mom then parked it in the center window of the little cottage on McLean Avenue, where it stayed every holiday season until Grandma was moved to a nursing home, and it stayed there every holiday season until she passed away.

At that point, the little tree came to me and has stood in my living room window every year since, with a few of my own modifications: I removed the gold garland (which had long since started to fall apart) and added more ornaments--mostly glass balls like the ones Mom had affixed, but also various imported glass shapes (a walnut, a pepper, the hidden pickle, etc.) and the odd tiny Hallmark creation (if you squint at the photo above, you can catch a glimpse of a '50s-style Catwoman dangling on the right side of the tree).

Granted, few people could see it from either the tiny living room window of my first apartment, a converted attic on the second floor of my parents' house, or the center window of the original La Casa del Terror, which was on the third floor behind a locust tree. Even in my current apartment, which is on the first floor, you can't see it lit very often, mostly because, with my work schedule being was it is these days, I'm rarely home to light it. (It makes little sense to flip the switch when I'm not getting back to my place until after ten or eleven.)

That's not really the point, though. It's not there necessarily for others to see, though it's nice when someone walks by the window, glances up and smiles or points at the pretty lights. Grandma's tree is there for me to see, whenever I'm around and able, as a reminder of holidays past, of the importance of treasuring the friends and family still in my life.

That's more than worth a flip of a switch every now and then.