The First Tree I Remember

The first Christmas tree I remember looked a little like this.

 

It's the holiday season, and time to share some fun family stories, memories, recipes, and more. Readers may recall some reruns from past years, but they are just to fun to pass up. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I look at them as my new family traditions.

This week, a new story courtesy of a writing prompt in a book son James gave me. It asked "Did you have a secret hiding place as a child?" The only place I could recall involved a Christmas tree. And that got me thinking about other trees...

The only childhood hiding place I recall was underneath a round wooden child's table. It was a play table, but also the same table that Tim and I—and probably later Joe too—wrote "punishments" when we were naughty.

It was also on this table that we put our "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree when I was 4 or 5 years old. The table and tree was placed in the second floor living room window, in our house on E. 147th St. in Cleveland. 

The Christmas tree was fake, with green, bristly tree limbs which looked like sticks. It was in a white square pot. The tree was not very tall, so it needed to be placed up on a table to have any height at all. 

Our parents borrowed our table from our room, put a white sheet over it to resemble snow, and put the Christmas tree on top. The table and sheet created a great hiding place underneath for two kids.

I have a vague recollection of hiding underneath the table and sheet on some Christmas morning. I'm sure I never would have thought to do that on my own—so it must have been brother Tim who egged me on to hide with him. I'm sure we probably got caught and scolded. But I'm pretty sure Christmas came anyway!

Later this Christmas tree was handed down for the kids' use, as the family had by then moved up to a bigger, fancier, fake tree—the kind which was assembled by poking the wire ends of branches into a center wooden pole. The Charlie Brown tree then moved to one of the kid bedrooms in our house on Dolores Drive, in Eastlake, where we moved before I was in second grade. 

Mom gave us copper-colored Christmas cookie cutters to trace around on construction paper, which we then cut out, colored, and decorated for tree ornaments. Each cutout had a little round hole punched into it with a small grey hole puncher. Into each hole went a twist-tie borrowed from the Baggie Alligator Bag sandwich bag box, and so each ornament had a red-and-white-stripey hanger. 

I still have the cookie cutters—there's a prancing reindeer, a Christmas tree, a Santa wearing a pack, a star, a bell, and a camel. I recall coloring the cutouts with crayons, glitter, and the oh-so-special shiny star stickers—red, green, blue, silver, and gold—just like the ones teachers used on school papers.

I thought it was very special to have a tree just for us kids. Did other families have more than one tree?

Christmas was Mom's favorite time of year, and as the years went on, she gathered more and more Christmas decorations. Soon, every floor in the house had a tree. Eventually, the Charlie Brown tree must have pooped out; at some point I just don't recall seeing it anymore. 

What I do remember is that this first tree was perfect and magical to my small kid eyes, in spite of its humble appearance. 

What was special about your Christmas tree? Tell us about it in a comment...

Until next time...