Christmas Trees in January

Today is January 11th, which is well beyond the date that is socially acceptable to remove a Christmas tree and box it up for next year. As I stand and stare at it and consider packaging up my ornaments, I get paralyzed and can't make myself do it.

I've asked myself why, and here is the truth.

I'm the only person left in my immediate family. Both of my parents are gone, my sister is gone and all of my grandparents are gone.

My Christmas tree is full of them. I like having them near.
I see ornaments my Mama and I made as a child. Salt dough she'd roll out and we'd get cookie cutters and cut them and bake them and paint them and glue glitter on them. I see the ornaments made of beads we strung one rainy summer in our vacation cabin in Canada. I see an angel that was an ornament she had as a child which makes it decades old and so delicate I flinch whenever my dogs goes near the tree for fear she will shatter.

I see my Dad's fishing ornaments, the kind of things you buy for a guy who is known for something- he was a Fisherman. There is a fishing hat, a fishing vest, even an actual glass fish. I hang them on the tree and little movies of memories play in my head of me fishing with him, standing in our shed cleaning fish together - me wearing my Sunday School gloves so as not to touch the yucky fish.

I see the ornament my Grandma gave me to remember her by that was filled with her perfume. I open it every year, the scent long faded, but every year I hope for a Christmas miracle of one more whiff of her lovely aroma.

I see fake stained glass ornaments and wooden cut out ornaments that my cousin Mary and I painted although she never remembers them. :)

I see things my kids bought me when they were little at their elementary school arts and crafts bazaar, and I see souvenir ornaments we picked from our travels through the years, the trolley car we picked up in San Francisco, the 25th anniversary Mickey Ears we got at Disneyland, a big blue bulb that says Elvis that I picked up in Memphis at Graceland (Don't judge.)

My tree is full of memories and full of the life of my family. A couple even have the name "Rorabaugh Family" engraved on them, and I am the last of the Rorabaughs' and it just makes me happy to see my name in print since no one ever uses it anymore.

My Christmas tree is still up less because I am lazy, and more because I am broken. I still grieve the ones I have lost. I cling to the memories of a family that's no longer here to celebrate with me and I'm not quite ready to pack all those memories up and stuff them in a closet again.

I miss my family.