The other day when Greg and I were at home in M town ( Madera, CA for those who aren't familiar with this awesome nickname) with Mama Smith, we were charged with putting up the Christmas tree. Growing up, we had a slew of different trees. We have had a tree with no leaves, live trees that we picked ourselves and hauled back home, a hand me down fake pine and finally a very fancy, beautiful lighted Christmas tree from Home Depot. As the tree was being erected, I had to laugh at the way we had to untangle the plugs and then straighten out the wired branches. This was supposed to be easy, right? We got the tree situated and then I proceeded to decorate it for my mom.
Decorating the tree is such a fun time for me. I get to travel down memory lane when I go through all the boxes of ornaments and decorations. As far back as I can remember, Mama Smith likes to color coordinate her trees. She has always had red and white be the "theme" of the tree. That being said, we also had some ornaments from my childhood that may not be the prettiest things but have to go up in the spirit of tradition. As I was trimming the tree, I got to see the familiar ornament that makes it home on the very bottom yet I can't seem to put it in the back where people can't see it. This ornament is from the year I was born- oddly enough, the ornament still looks new. It is a sturdy miniature old timer's car that just screams 70's. It doesn't seem to match the theme of my mom's tree, yet I don't want to banish it to the "unworthy of trimming the tree" box. So every year, this ornament takes it's place among all the red holly berries, white crocheted stars and white ribbon and a few other un-matching ornaments in order to truly keep tradition alive.
