A Holiday Symbol of Our Lives

What your Christmas tree can really mean

Last night I pulled out an old cardboard U-Haul box from our closet. One that I will admit has been packed since last December when I made the move to Arizona. 

It’s a box full of all my Christmas stuff as well as some random odds and ends like bathroom organizers and some old supplement bottles. I’m not proud to admit that it sat in our dining room for nearly 11 months, causing quite the eye sore.

I just didn’t care enough to actually go through everything. Well, after moving into a new home and having a solid home base to spend Christmas for the first time in two years, I was ready to unpack the box.

It had turned out to be helpful for the move that everything was still in its place. I could confidently point to the box that stored the Christmas ornaments, something I might not otherwise have been able to do. I mean who really remembers where that stuff is stored when you change apartments nearly every year? 

When I opened the box I was surprised to see just how many ornaments I had collected over the years. This was the first tree of my own that I’ve ever had, the first one I got to decorate with my collection of ornaments rather than the ones I grew up with. 

The first ornaments I unwrapped were clear balls my now fiance and I had decorated at a Christmas event in DC back when we first started dating.

The next one was a sparkly red bus I bought in my favorite department store, Harrod’s, back in 2020 when we traveled to London during the holidays. 

Then came an entire collection of secret service ornaments from over the years that were gifted to me by a secret service agent as a thanks for tutoring his daughter in math. 

I’ve always made it a point to collect ornaments from all of the places my fiance and I have traveled together. Since we traveled to (and lived in) multiple cities from 2020 until recently, I discovered ornaments from Sedona, Zion National Park, Santa Fe, and Idaho. All of our travel adventures sprawled out on our 4-foot-tall Christmas tree! 

It is cool to see our entire relationship and its adventures displayed on this illuminated symbol of joy sitting in our living room. 

I look back on the ornaments we put on the Christmas tree I grew up with with fond memories. My baby picture from my very first Christmas. A clay figurine of my childhood dog, Sunny. An entire Madame Alexander Collection, a new doll for each year I’ve been alive. 

Christmas trees do an excellent job of capturing a picture of our lives. The most extravagant moments. The simplest moments. The new people and pets in our lives, and the old, forever-cherished ones. 

The last ornament I unwrapped to hang on the tree happened to be one I gifted my fiance on our second Christmas together, a picture of us on our very first Christmas. At that point, I had known he was someone special who would be in my life for a very long time. I wanted to commemorate our “firsts” together. 

Now, we are celebrating our first Christmas as an engaged couple. 

I know not everyone decorates their trees with sentimental ornaments. You may be the type to buy a 50-pack of different colored balls from your local Target. And, sure, those are beautiful too. 

But what if you could relive all of the joys of your life each year when decorating your Christmas tree? Wouldn’t that be something special? 

It is little things like these, small tokens of where we’ve been and who has come into our lives, that ignite the holiday spirit within. At the end of the day, this is what the holidays are all about. Enjoying where you are at, where you’ve been, who you are with, and all the love you’ve been given over the years. 

Merry Christmas!