Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

My life in a tree

When I moved out of my parents' house, my mother gave me a box of Christmas tree ornaments. In the box were any that were "mine": the ones she made from my nursery mobile (the cow and the moon, the dish and the spoon), the cardboard train that had been attached to a childhood present, the Shrinky-Dinks I'd made with the girl down the street. I also have the ornaments Mom gave me every Christmas, and I realized as I hung them this year that it's my biography on the tree. There's a painter, because as a child I wanted to be an artist. There's a koala bear, from when I thought they were the coolest animal on earth, and an ice skater from the year I learned to skate. There's a camera, a cheeseburger (the pre-almost-a-vegetarian Nic), and from just a few years ago, Santa riding a bike. I have a yellow lab ornament, and a lizard, and a beagle (and rats, yes. Them too.)

When we kids moved out, my parents ended up with a whole new Christmas decorating theme: hand-blown glass rather than cardboard and glitter. Class instead of kitsch. We joked that that was why my mother gave us our ornaments...secretly she'd been wanting the pretty tree.

I like mine the way it is, though, on chapter 35.