I drove up to Edinburgh yesterday, to spend Christmas with my parents. I'm glad I arrived last night, because it meant I was able to decorate the tree today on Christmas Eve, which is the traditional, and in my view, best time to put up decorations.
Some of the decorations are new, but some I recognise as favourites when I used to decorate the tree as a child. Indeed, one box is marked "6d each, 1/- for the centre" (2.5p and 5p for post-decimalisation babies), the centre decoration being a long, thin spike for the top of the tree. They were probably bought sometime soon after the war (World War 2, I should say, to distinguish it from the others since).
Some of the decorations are a bit bedraggled, and some are definitely old-fashioned, but I love this connection with the past. For me, the tradition of Christmas is not putting up ornaments, but putting up these particular ornaments. Yes, the collection changes over time, as some are damaged and have to be replaced, but that's a gradual process. Buying a completely new set might be more in keeping with what other people are doing, but it would have no meaning.
I believe strongly in the importance of individual myths/traditions/stories. Without wishing to sound in any way like a Daily Mail reader, I bemoan the decline of such things in favour of mass, impersonal ... I can't think of the right word, so I'll have to call it 'stuff', but I don't mean objects or products. I suppose I mean 'culture' but not the highbrow sort. Does anyone understand what I'm on about, or am I just talking nonsense?
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1 comment:
you haven't got it in you to sound like a Daily Mail reader. I used to love decorating the tree on christmas eve when I was a child. Reading what you wrote really brought back to me the battered box in which the tree ornaments were kept - all those delicate glass baubles - we had one in the shape of a Santa - my sister and I would always fight over who put him on the tree. Txxx
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