“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, Of all the trees most lovely. Each year you bring to us delight.
With brightly shining Christmas light!” — “O Tannenbaum”
The lights are shining. Christmas decorating has started at my house. The emphasis is on “started” because, for me, decorating is a work in progress. It doesn’t happen overnight or even in a week. Sometimes, it lasts until Christmas Eve.
I always decorate by following my mother’s tradition. She believed Christmas trees are decorated the Friday after Thanksgiving and not one day sooner. There was never a Christmas tree in the house on or before Thanksgiving. Ever.
My mother was a traditionalist in many ways. She also practiced “never wear white after Labor Day.” You could set your calendar by it when I was growing up.
If the ladies at church were still wearing white, summer was not over. But when Mom put away her white hat, gloves and shoes, we knew fall was just around the corner.
That “wearing white” thing fell out of tradition before the turn of the last century. But bless her heart, Mom was a diehard. She gave up wearing hats to church only after she and one other lady were the last of the faithful.
Even then, she complained that she wasn’t properly dressed for church services. “Never thought I’d live to see the day,” I remember her saying, “when a lady would go to church without a hat and gloves.”
Another thing I remember Mom saying was, “What is this country coming to?” That was said after seeing, for the first time, a brightly lit Christmas tree adorning the picture window of a house down the street ... a week before Thanksgiving.
Historically, Americans found Christmas trees an oddity before German settlers brought the tradition to the U.S. in the mid-1800s.
Back then, plants and trees that remained green year-round held special meaning in winter. People hung evergreen boughs over doors and windows to celebrate the winter solstice while looking forward to cold weather giving way to spring’s return.
I tried to remember that appreciation for cold weather while living in Boerne in the Hill Country a few years ago. There, the cold weather — as most recognize it — is rare. Short sleeves in December were the norm. I even recall wearing shorts on more than one Christmas Day.
One Hill Country Christmas season, the kids and I enjoyed our decorations so much that we left the tree up a few days into the new year, at least until Valentine’s Day. We boxed up the Christmas decorations and replaced them with hearts and Cupids, and we loved it. So much so that we rolled right into Easter with it, decorating appropriately, of course.
Then there was Memorial Day, followed by Independence Day and so on.
But, in so doing, we violated one of Mom’s other traditions.
“Got to get the tree down,” she always said right after washing the last dish from Christmas dinner. “The new year is coming. Get those lights and ornaments off.”
The first glass ornaments were seen in America in the late 1800s. Electric holiday lights were not common in American homes until rural electrification became widespread in the late 1950s.
Mom rocked it in the early 1960s when she bought an aluminum Christmas tree. We spent nights watching the color wheel change hues on the metallic “leaves” instead of our new television set. After all, the TV was just black and white.
But even then, Mom never wavered on tradition. The tree still went up on Friday after Thanksgiving and was gone soon after Christmas Day.
Decorating at my house is different now — the helpers are dwindling. Kids are grown and gone, living in other cities with activities and traditions of their own.
But I still do it with music and memories.
“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree/Have a happy holiday/Everyone dancin’ merrily/In the new old-fashioned way.” — recorded by Brenda Lee Thanksgiving is behind us. The tree is up in accordance with Mom’s Yule traditions to delight “with brightly shining Christmas lights.” I hope Mom will forgive me, but I may leave it up for a while again this year. Just for the memories.
— Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@ gmail.com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com.
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