At first, this was a sell out for a purist like Anne who liked the smell of the cut tree in the house, but it was the right thing to do. Anne had more than enough ornaments to “stock” a larger tree. ![]() So in 1994, our last Christmas in Atlanta, we bought a 9.5-foot artificial tree. ![]() Well, Atlanta grew to be several million people, and the growth of the exurbs pushed the tree farms farther and farther away, like over an hour. We usually had a tree up in Atlanta until the end of February or so. Not to let a tree’s expired metabolism ruin our love of a decorated tree, we would make another pilgrimage to the exurbs to cut another tree, and Anne would transfer the lights and ornaments to the newer tree. After a few weeks, when the needles started to fall, it was no longer necessary to fill the containers because the tree had died. I learned from Anne’s father Chuck about using multiple containers of water with syphons between them in series, so that a live tree never ran out of water. Never one to throw something out, Anne would pick up the pieces and painstakingly, over several days, use Elmer’s glue to reassemble most of the ornament, but leaving an opening, in which she would then construct a small scene inside the ornament. An occasional retooled ornament would come about if a blown glass ornament fell to the floor and broke. Many are from both our parents’ collections, many Anne made by hand, and many were purchased as the clever ornaments, often hand made, caught our fancy. She had an awesome collection of ornaments and lights, and now I do. After cutting a tree, we brought it home, and Anne would decorate it to the nines. It’s such a daunting project to remove all ornaments that we have left the trees up since our time in Piqua, OH.īack in the day, circa 1980s, when we lived in Atlanta, and the population was a mere 2 million or so, we made a pilgrimage outside the perimeter highway to a tree farm. We leave them up for the whole 5 months we are in Sedona. We discovered large outdoor tree ornaments a few years ago at a friend’s house, and hang several from trees in front of our house. She loved her ornaments, lights, garlands, outdoor lights, etc. ![]() Annie did Christmas well, and the main focus was the tree, or trees, to be more specific, as well as other decorations, like the metal angels. So, I decided it would be healing for me and perhaps you, to write about Anne’s and my (secular tagalong) versions of Christmas. I noticed them, said “angels” to myself, and then said, “Annie was an angel an angel she was if anyone was.” As I walked to our fireplace in Sedona to light a gas log fire on this blustery day of December 5, 2017, with temp only 51 and sunny skies, I bumped into two metal angels hanging from the mantel.
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