I’m thinking of her now

Christmas may still be about a week and a half away, but at my house almost all is ready.
My yard, outside house and deck lights are on, and a fresh cut wild balsam fir tree is up and decorated in the house.
There is no doubt in my mind where I get my love of Christmas, and especially preparations for Christmas, come from. My mother implanted that love in me at an early age.
She was born in the pre-Depression days of the early 1920s. For decades she made do, and she made do very well, with not all that much to work with, money-wise that is.
She was married at the age of 17 and had three sons by 1946. She had a fourth — yours truly — in 1949 just months after her second-born died in a drowning accident.

In the year I was born she realized divorce was a better alternative than a terrible marriage, so like always, she made do. She bought her own land and a trailer home in Arbor Vitae, gave birth to me in that trailer home and for over a year there made do better than anyone could have dreamed of.
Fortunately for me and herself, she got a second chance at marriage, and I got a chance to get the man who would be the only father in my life, a matter legally fulfilled when he and I exited the Vilas County Courthouse one day as father and adopted son.
My parents, like so many Vilas County parents of the 50s, made do. Money was tight, but it was also wisely spent. Neither I nor my siblings ever felt like we were shorted for anything when it came to food, clothing, or Christmas presents.
When it came to Christmas my dad was a bit of a Grinch, at least when it came to going out into the woods to cut a Christmas tree, something he was always willing to put off until Christmas Eve if he could.
My mother, on the other hand, loved her Christmas trees and with a scant string or two of lights, a box of both homemade and long-used store-bought ornaments, along with tinsel used, reused, and reused again for years, she brightened our home every Christmas season.
She also passed on that love of finding and cutting and decorating a perfect Christmas tree — always a balsam, never a spruce or pine — to me, and by the time I was a teenager the job of finding and bringing home the family Christmas tree was happily mine.
Last week I found this year’s Griswold-worthy tree on land owned by a good friend of mine, and it is now set up and fully decorated in our living room; a balsam fir as it always has been and always will be.
I know that there are several species that make for fine Christmas trees in homes all over, but for me the sweet scent of balsam, the deep green needles that hold tight to gently placed ornaments and clipped-on lights — especially my old-fashioned bubble lights — guarantees that a wild balsam — never farm-raised — will grace my living room every Christmas season.
When I finished putting all the ornaments on this week, I sat back the first evening the tree was up and looked at it just as I have sat looking at every year’s Christmas tree for hours, joy in my heart that a tree such as a balsam should give me such unlimited pleasure.
I looked it over several times, noticing that hung from its branches were several ornaments from the late 40s into the 50s that were handed down to me by my mother. A colorful metal bell, a Chinese lantern-shaped metal ornament of varied colors, and a handful of glass balls, the latter the only survivors of several my mother gave to me.
Along with those really old ornaments, a number of wooden ornaments created by my lovely wife over 50 years ago are hanging on this year’s tree as well. They were marked as paint-by-number ornaments in a kit, and as a 19-year-old brand-new mother, my wife hand-painted each one; carolers, angels, a rocking horse and others, all long-used but still treasured ornaments to admire each Christmas season.
There are a few hand-sewn and knitted ornaments as well, along with my favorite store-bought decorations. I will unabashedly admit that I am an ornament junkie whenever I step inside a Christmas shop, and several absolutely beautiful, handcrafted ornaments, many of them from a wonderful Christmas shop in Door County, hang from our tree as well.
Do I get a lump in my throat as I look at the old-time ornaments my mother gave me so many years ago? Contrary to my long-cultivated appearance as a true backwoods hick who has not a single mushy, sentimental bone in his body, Christmas trees, Christmas ornaments and Christmas lights never fail to make me feel like a sentimental old codger.
I should not admit it, but when I look at those beautiful things my backwoods, never-emotional, stoic persona disappears about the same time a few tears find their way out of my eyes as I think about and remember my mother and our long-ago Christmases together.
I’m very much thinking about her right now.