Ghosts of Christmas Past

The apple box is probably older than I am, the contents wrapped carefully in Kleenex and paper towels, yellow with age. One of my parents' favorite Christmas stories is how when they were first married all they could afford for their first Christmas tree was the cheapest Christmas balls possible, the red ones. Apparently back then (keep in mind they've been married 40 years this year), they were sold in boxes by color rather than now. They vowed that we wouldn't have a Christmas tree like that so each year when we were kids, our parents would purchase Christmas ornaments for us. In the beginning they were just random pieces picked up at craft fairs. I have a little girl on a swing who, for some reason, never manages to stay upright on the swing, her little thread 'chains' twisting her upside down. There's the stick horse, with a pixie stick for the stick. I don't even want to think how old that pixie stick is. As I unwrap each thing in the box, I am flooded with memories of each thing. The knitted stocking with the white bear, Nan's was a horse and Mandy's a brown bear. The skier I made when we (in a rare family activity) sat around the table and made them. The little Santa box that lifts open to reveal a teeny tiny space inside, one of the last things my sister gave me. Doesn't Joey make a comment about the little tiny boxes women love... too small to put anything in them. Missy, old roommate, used to call them our crack vials. The little green and white elf, I think it is supposed to be an elf, I have had since I was a small child. The crazy salt dough ornaments Kate and I made one year, my first Christmas in Alaska in my very own apartment, that are too heavy to actually hang on the tree; they fall off. There's the Christmas ball one of my students made fore me, 100 years ago when I was a teacher. Each time I reach into the box, it is with a tiny bit of anticipation since I have no idea what I'm going to find. It's like an archaeological dig, dusting away at the layers of my past life. After a while, she switched to the Hallmark ornaments, but for some reason, they don't mean as much to me as these weird mismatches from my childhood.