It’s a wonderful time of the year! Christmas music is filling the airways and my home. Villages and stores are decorated for the holidays. Colorful Christmas lights twinkle in the night, making me smile and warming our spirits. (Luckily, our outdoor lighting decorations were completed before the snow arrived.)

My family and I have already started to test our indoor lights and check our decorating supplies. Checking our seven plastic storage bins in the basement, used for storing our holiday supplies, we came across the most precious decor of the collection. Wrapped in white tissue paper and layered with bubble wrap, the repaired, foot-long statue of baby Jesus lying in a bed of straw was unwrapped. It had been given to my mother by her father after the birth of her sixth child during one of our annual visits to see him in Detroit, Michigan. At that time, he also passed on to her the fragile, heirloom tree ornaments that had been in our family for generations. Many of them had been carried over from Poland when my ancestors traveled across the ocean to America.

Checking these delicate reminders of my past, made me reminisce about the old-fashioned Christmases of my childhood. It’s interesting how spotty my childhood memories of Christmas are. (Checking with my younger sister, Stella, her memories match mine but are equally lacking in many details.)

Thinking back to the 1945-1955 era, I know my mom and dad, three sisters, two brothers and I lived in our five-bedroom farm house in Sheridan. I remember, in the cold, snowy weather, our Dad would put on his warmest bibbed coveralls, hooded jacket, boots and gloves and take the Allis-Chalmers, orange, dependable tractor and travel to our wood lot with the wooden trailer and a saw and he would cut down an evergreen tree. Looking back, it was usually a little bit more like a “Charlie Brown” tree than the perfectly trimmed trees of modern days. Invariably it had a few goldenrod stems stuck in the branches or a bird nest nestled in among the needles. Sometimes there would be pine cones stuck to the greenery. It usually leaned to one side, with a few empty areas but Dad would fix that by placing it in the corner of our living room and anchoring it down with brown, grape-tying twine, using the front window and the side door for anchors. It smelled heavenly. It was our Christmas tree!

Waiting for the two little boys to take a nap, and letting it “thaw out a bit,” Dad would help us put the big, multi-colored lights on the tree. (We were fortunate to be able to afford two strings of lights for the whole tree.) The glass bulbs would get rather warm quickly and if one burned out, the whole string would stop working. Later, I remember being mesmerized by the bubble lights shaped like miniature candles. I stared for hours, watching the little glass tubes, filled with colored liquid actually bubble up when they got warm. (As a child, I never did figure out how they operated!)

When the little boys would wake up, they would try to help us drape the tree with red and green paper chains that we made in school and with popcorn ropes. (They usually ate more than they put on the threading needles.) Finally, after the boys were in bed for the night, Mom and Dad would take the large cardboard box from the storage room and we would carefully unwrap the newspaper from each of the breakable, treasured ornaments. We knew we had to handle these adored items with extreme care.

There were large and small silver bells trimmed with red and green stripes. The silver, glass doves with stiff bristle tails were clipped on the higher branches. There were spheres, stars and moon shapes. Some of the keepsakes had white, scratchy snow painted on them while others had glitter glued on them. The highly esteemed, clear-glassed collectibles with tiny Christmas figurines inside created an elf-like habitat. I loved the choice creations with Polish words painted on them because they made my parents speak Polish, which was very rare. The unique specimens with hand-painted pictures of the manger scene in Bethlehem, the Wise Men, or church scenes were placed near the angel on top of the tree.

Afterwards, at times when our chores were completed, we girls would bundle up in the parlor on our burgundy, velvet-like, flower-patterned sofa and matching, wide, upholstered chair and play our favorite game of “I Spy.” We would take turns and describe a precious selection by color and the others had to guess which gem we had chosen. For example, I’d say, “I spy with my little eye, and I see one that is silver, blue and green.” Then everyone would try to guess which prized bauble had been selected. Whoever guessed the correct item first, would get the next turn. (It never occurred to me to switch to a second ornament to lengthen my turn!) We played this game for long periods of time and it was a favorite when company came to visit.

Nestled under the tree branches, the Baby Jesus statue always was placed on a quilted blanket under the tree near a white light (like in a spotlight) and no one was allowed to play with it. It was a memento from my namesake, Grandmother Angeline and therefore it was highly adored and protected.

These same beloved heirlooms have been passed on and shared with each of the six children of George and Phyllis Smith. Sharing these invaluable treasures with my sisters and brothers helps us to remember those times long ago. Our trees are perfectly formed now, some artificial and some still harvested from nearby tree farms. Our tree lights now stay on even if one burns out. Our highly esteemed collectibles have little monetary value. Some have lost their shine. Others have become tarnished over the years. The white “snow” paint has turned yellow and gray. A few are scratched and worn. Invariably a few were broken. Every year, as soon as Thanksgiving celebrations are concluded, my “perfectly-shaped” artificial tree is carefully adorned with these prized collectibles preserved from long ago. As we gingerly place each rare, unique creation on my tree, I think back to those Christmas memories of long ago. When my large family gathers for our annual Christmas Party, I see them gaze upon my tree and as their eyes fill with tears, I know that we are all remembering when we were all together on the farm with Mom and Dad.

Every year at our Christmas celebration, the youngest child in our family carries the treasured Baby Jesus statue (recently repaired and repainted) from under my Christmas tree to the dining room table in procession as we sing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus as we cut and share his birthday cake. It’s gotten to be a much-anticipated tradition in our family. My Christmas heirloom decorations help to remind us of a time when money was scarce, but love, sacrifice and family togetherness was abundant and precious. After all, isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

By Angeline Smith Leone, “Palm of Hand” writing group.