Our first Christmas tree was a pine branch stuck into a white plastic milk jug.  That year, we’d been married for only two months when I came down with meningitis in mid-November.  Distracted by my potential imminent demise, my husband, Bruce, did not attempt to decorate.  So, on Christmas Eve, a friend of ours kindly left the branch in a jug on our doorstep.

            During the next few years of married life, we lived in an apartment so small, you could use a short-corded vacuum to clean the whole place without ever having to shift to a second outlet.  Our minuscule living room had space for a couch, a coffee table and standing room for one person, one skinny person.  So, there wasn’t a single spot to squeeze in a Christmas tree.  Instead, we hung three shiny red orbs on a Ficus plant nicknamed Spike.

            Later, we moved to North Carolina where we lived in a tiny, rented house and lived on an even tinier student budget.  Our sons (five and three) danced with glee when we told them we’d planned to spring for a real Christmas tree.  Bruce brought home a Scotch pine.  About two minutes after hanging our meager ornaments, one member of our family, who shall remain nameless, experienced an overwhelming asthma attack.  We wound up giving the tree, decorations, and all, to a neighbor.  In exchange, she sent over her two-foot high, PINK, aluminum tree that my little boys greeted with great wailing and gnashing of teeth.

            From then on, we Prums wisely purchased Douglas Firs; trees our sensitive lungs could handle. However, all those years of Christmas Decoration Deprivation took its toll on my husband’s psyche.  Now, the day after Thanksgiving, he goes into a festooning frenzy, draping every square inch of our house with holiday doodads. Our home looks like the set from Sanford and Son—for you youngsters, it was a seventies TV show that takes place in a junkyard.

            My sentimental husband has saved every last Christmas craft our non-artistically gifted children have produced, the most memorable of which is a crèche.  When the boys were in elementary school, they went through a short-lived carpentry phase.  They constructed a crèche composed of sawed-off tops of two by fours, each standing about six inches high.  With magic markers, the boys drew figures on the boards:  wise men, wise sheep, a donkey, shepherds, a possible space alien, Joseph, the baby Jesus, etc.  Unfortunately, the marker ink bled into the grain of the wood producing a surrealistic visual effect, notably on the Virgin Mary’s face, which, suffice it to say, does not look beatific.

            Not only are our decorations aesthetically underwhelming, but some are also dangerous, namely an ornament I’ve dubbed The Killer Angel.  Designed by a maniacal kindergarten teacher, it’s constructed entirely from tin can parts. The sharp wings could easily slice off a finger. I’m not even exaggerating.  Oh, maybe I’m exaggerating a little.

            Now that the kids are adults, when Christmas rolls around, they don’t always make it back for the holidays.  Although I’ve been cranky about our tasteless decorations, I’ll have to admit, I’m grateful for the little reminders of the children displayed throughout the house.  Don’t tell Bruce this, but as our grandchildren get older, I’m looking forward to new craft projects hanging from the limbs of our very full tree.