Tradition Shmadition!

One bright, but chilly day in the middle of November, a kind and cheerful woman that we will call…..Sushi, finally decided to quit feeling sad that the summer-swimmy days were over. She chose to wholeheartedly embrace the coming season of Winter and her favorite holiday, Christmas! She really had no choice because the pool toys were put away and the pool was freezing cold, with no plans to turn on a pool heater.

Sushi implored her husband, umm…..Shmurt, to please bring the Christmas decorations down from the attic. Standing at the base of the attic stairs in the cold garage, waiting for him to hand down the boxes, she recalled that when she had put away the Christmas tree lights last year, she’d done a little experiment. Instead of separating the strings of lights, she kept them all connected and wrapped the multiple strings around a metal tray to keep them from becoming tangled.

You need to know that even though I have described our friend, Sushi, as a kind and cheerful woman, she does have some quirks. She is grumpy that the tree is a job that is totally up to her. She assembles it, lights it, and decorates it. Her sweet grandchildren usually help with the last task, and she loves to let them loose to hang the old family ornaments anywhere they want. They plan to help in the coming week. She feels kind of proud that she allows them to help.

“See, I’m not controlling!” Sushi mutters to herself while struggling to wrap the long cord of lights around the tree, a few days later. Her faithful dog….Schmetta, wondered why she kept talking to the weird thing that was clearly not-a-tree.

Sadly, once the extra heavy and extra long string of lights had been carefully wound around the tall tree, Sushi plugged them in and many sections were dark! And yes, dear Reader, she had tested the lights before wrestling to get them evenly around the tree. Her muttering is now growing louder and her body is getting tense as she hoped to get this job finished before her husband came home from work. (Again, Sushi is not controlling, she just wants it done when she wants it done.)

Poor, tired, Shmurt walks in from work and finds his dear wife frustrated, angry, and saying outrageous things like, “Who needs lights anyway! Maybe we could just do without Christmas lights this year!”

Sushi is dirty, sore, and at the end of her patience. In years past she has done it all without help, but today is a different story. She could not do it on her own. That could be the only explanation for such ridiculous words to come from her mouth. Her husband suddenly knew that this was a serious situation indeed. As he watched her stomp from the living room and into their bedroom, he had to come to her rescue.

So, dear Readers, if you are still with me on this little tale, this is the point in the story of Sushi and her Christmas tree where something odd happens and a lesson is learned.

Each year this kind and cheerful woman slowly and gently removes her old and cherished tree ornaments from the carefully wrapped papers and reminisces about each one as she hangs it on the tree. Later she will let the grandkids add the less fragile decorations, but for now, the nostalgia takes over as each small glass, wood, or construction paper creation brings back memories.

But this year she is mad and doesn’t want to have anything more to do with the tree. It’s a quiet mad, nothing shouty or noticeable. So dear Shmurt decides to correct the lights on the tree and she thanks him, but still she does not want to hang decorations just yet.

He opens the boxes of baubles and balls and begins to place them on the tree. Now Shmurt is different from Sushi, in that he is very methodical and extremely orderly. He does not randomly pull out decorations and hum as he wanders around the tree looking for a fun spot like Sushi usually does. His style is almost scientific in its precision and care.

First, he hangs all of the smallest, red Christmas balls, next he places all of the medium-sized, red Christmas balls, of course, followed by the large, red Christmas balls. Staying with the red theme, he then places all of the red Santas, red-stocking-capped-gnomes, and little red trucks that his wife adores. There also happened to be quite a few red mittens and red stars to add to the tree.

He says something like, “Hey, I like it this way, with just red things on the tree. Why don’t we leave it like this?”

Well, excuse me, but Sushi did not respond in the affirmative to this silly suggestion at all! What in the world was he thinking? Are we supposed to leave the handprints in the box? Are we going to ignore the paper angels just because they are not red? Are you suggesting that we don’t hang the golden stars or the cookie dough stocking just because it is orange? What about the Baby’s First Christmas ornament or the Favorite Teacher star?

Guess what? This may only happen for one year. It is probably a one-time event. But, both Sushi and Shmurt started to really love the look of the totally red-decorated Christmas tree! Sushi was heard saying that it was kind of refreshing and beautiful to look at. She even thought that the completely red-toned tree felt a little bit rebellious in a kind and cheerful kind of way.

As the days went by, Sushi found herself smiling every time she looked at their pretty red-decorated Christmas tree. It was actually fun to do something different from their traditional way. It was OK to mix things up a bit! The world did not end because a tradition was altered. What do you know!

I’ve been told that Sushi learned an important and sweet lesson this holiday season. Though she, of course, is NOT a controlling person when it comes to Christmas, it does not hurt to allow others to step in and add their own ideas once in a while. Someone else can see things in a whole new way and it can be beautiful.

Sushi, Shmurt, and their dog…Schmetta… wish you a very merry Christmas around your own decorated trees!