The ornaments are up.
Not all of them — we don’t have a tree big enough for my grandmother’s full collection, and honestly, I’m not ready for some of them anyway. The little ceramic angel she painted in 1987. The photo ornament of my grandfather, gone twenty years now. Those are still in their boxes in the hall closet, wrapped in tissue paper and waiting.
But the tree is up, strung with lights and hung with the mismatched collection of our life: the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments for each kid (Emma’s is a pink bootie, Thomas Jr.’s is a tiny baseball glove), the handmade salt dough stars from Sunday school, and yes, a few of Grandma’s — the safer ones, the ones that don’t make me cry.
Tom put the star on top. He had to stand on a chair because the ceilings in this old farmhouse are higher than our old place. Emma was deeply concerned that he would fall. Thomas Jr. was concerned that we were blocking the TV.
I keep waiting for this to feel normal. Living here, I mean. Cooking in her kitchen, sleeping in the room where she raised her children, walking paths she walked for fifty years.
Some days it does. I’ll be making coffee or folding laundry and I’ll forget, for a moment, that anything has changed. The house just feels like home.
Other days I catch myself looking for her. Listening for her humming in the next room. Expecting her to be at the kitchen table when I come downstairs, the way she always was, doing the crossword puzzle in pen (she was stubborn like that, and usually right).
She’s not there.
But also… she kind of is? In the way the light comes through the windows she chose. In the garden beds she built. In the apple butter I finally got right (low and slow, just like she taught me without teaching me).
We’re hosting Christmas this year. My brother Frank is driving up from Lexington with his wife and their new baby. Jenny and her husband are coming from the next county. Renee… we’ll see. She’s complicated, but that’s another post.
The point is: this house will be full. Loud with kids and laughter and probably at least one argument about who ate the last piece of pie. My grandmother would have loved it. She always said this house was too quiet after Grandpa died.
It won’t be quiet this Christmas.
And maybe that’s the best gift I can give her. 🎄