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It's been a while. Things...have been going on.
My mother-in-law always put up the most gorgeous Christmas trees, layered in meaning and tradition, with ornaments collected since the early 1950s. Our kids, when they were little, would spend an hour or more inspecting each year's tree, tracking down their favorite ornaments, seeing in what juxtapostion they were hung that year, which ones took prominence, what new ones had been added. Just as H and his brother had done as children. M had two years of that, before my father-in-law died, and Mom evidently decided "no more trees."
I mentioned to H's brother that, rather than leaving them mouldering in boxes under the house until her death and then going either to strangers or the landfill, that it might be nice to pass the ornaments on to the grandkids, so they would become part of her great-grands' heritage and memory, too. H's brother talked with Mom, who heartily agreed, and so the boxes were passed to me as divider and hander-on. I will retain some, as they are H's heritage, too. His brother declined in favor of the creche Dad built the year he was born, it's all he really wants.
StE and his family came to visit last weekend, we took him shopping for clothes and shoes for his late-November birthday and Christmas. And then we opened the cartons where the boxes of ornaments waited. And StE's wife refused, with tears, to participate in choosing among the treasures. When it became clear she was adamant, I shooed everyone else out so we could talk. She has nothing from her childhood--which was, in most ways, nightmarish. But coming to Christmas with StE, whom H and I gifted with a chosen ornament every year of his life, she feels the inequity. She wants to have a tree they share, it's important to her not to feel her lack. At the same time, his history is important to him, he loves to unpack each ornament and remember the occasion of recieving it. It seems irreconcilable. I put the legacy ornaments away and didn't insist she take them. But I did ask that she work on it, so that she could accept and use them before the 11-year-old is 18, so they can be part of his childhood, as well as part of the 3-year-old's. And I asked StE to consider not unpacking his ornaments and reminiscing as he put them on the tree for one year. Whether that's this year or not, I left it to him.
StY hasn't come to claim his share of the legacy ornaments, either. And it looks as though neither H nor I feel either the need or the energy to put up a tree this year. So after my making a point of wresting her ornaments away from Mom, they'll spend yet another Chirstmas quiet in their dark boxes.
In other news, my daughter in law's ex-husband killed both his current girlfriend and himself this two weeks before Christmas, leaving my daughter in law and step-grandson with unresolved issues, and a Christmas season forever tainted. It was an action entirely in character for him.
My mother-in-law always put up the most gorgeous Christmas trees, layered in meaning and tradition, with ornaments collected since the early 1950s. Our kids, when they were little, would spend an hour or more inspecting each year's tree, tracking down their favorite ornaments, seeing in what juxtapostion they were hung that year, which ones took prominence, what new ones had been added. Just as H and his brother had done as children. M had two years of that, before my father-in-law died, and Mom evidently decided "no more trees."
I mentioned to H's brother that, rather than leaving them mouldering in boxes under the house until her death and then going either to strangers or the landfill, that it might be nice to pass the ornaments on to the grandkids, so they would become part of her great-grands' heritage and memory, too. H's brother talked with Mom, who heartily agreed, and so the boxes were passed to me as divider and hander-on. I will retain some, as they are H's heritage, too. His brother declined in favor of the creche Dad built the year he was born, it's all he really wants.
StE and his family came to visit last weekend, we took him shopping for clothes and shoes for his late-November birthday and Christmas. And then we opened the cartons where the boxes of ornaments waited. And StE's wife refused, with tears, to participate in choosing among the treasures. When it became clear she was adamant, I shooed everyone else out so we could talk. She has nothing from her childhood--which was, in most ways, nightmarish. But coming to Christmas with StE, whom H and I gifted with a chosen ornament every year of his life, she feels the inequity. She wants to have a tree they share, it's important to her not to feel her lack. At the same time, his history is important to him, he loves to unpack each ornament and remember the occasion of recieving it. It seems irreconcilable. I put the legacy ornaments away and didn't insist she take them. But I did ask that she work on it, so that she could accept and use them before the 11-year-old is 18, so they can be part of his childhood, as well as part of the 3-year-old's. And I asked StE to consider not unpacking his ornaments and reminiscing as he put them on the tree for one year. Whether that's this year or not, I left it to him.
StY hasn't come to claim his share of the legacy ornaments, either. And it looks as though neither H nor I feel either the need or the energy to put up a tree this year. So after my making a point of wresting her ornaments away from Mom, they'll spend yet another Chirstmas quiet in their dark boxes.
In other news, my daughter in law's ex-husband killed both his current girlfriend and himself this two weeks before Christmas, leaving my daughter in law and step-grandson with unresolved issues, and a Christmas season forever tainted. It was an action entirely in character for him.
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It's a shame about the ornaments. We went through something similar in dividing up my late aunt's stuff. Fortunately for us, there don't seem to be any bad associations.
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But the ornaments will still be here next year. And the year after that, if it takes that long.
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Just now? This year? Oh, my. How terrible.
How old is the step-grandson?
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