24 Days of Martin – Day 05:  Decorations

Martin slowly woke up and stretched, yawned, and wiped the sleep out of his eyes.  Then he remembered the Christmas Tree!  It was decoration day!!  Martin excitedly hopped out of bed, stopped in the bathroom to wash his face and then headed into the kitchen. He could smell bacon and coffee so he knew Mom was awake!   “MOM!  MOM!  MOM!” Martin yelled and he clambered down the hallway.  “WHEN DO WE GET TO START DECORATING?!?!?”

“Martin, calm down!  The tree and the decorations aren’t going anywhere.”, she laughed.

Martin climbed into his chair at the table and gulped down the orange juice sitting at his place.  “But MOOOM…”, Martin started to whine.

“No buts Mister!  Dad went out to get us some candy canes to put on tree.  We will start when he gets back.  So, eat your breakfast!  Then we can clean up the kitchen and, if Dad’s not home yet, we’ll start unboxing the decorations.  Dad took them out of the attic last night after you went to bed.”

“Ok!” Martin wanted to sulk because he wanted to put the decorations on the tree NOW.    However, his tummy was growling and he wanted to eat.  Besides, he knew the convenience store Dad had gone to was not far away so he would be back soon.  After eating, Martin cleared his plate from the table and went to brush his teeth.  He returned to the kitchen to see Mom making hot chocolate so they could dip their candy canes and have something warm to drink while they decorated.  Mom smiled and walked over to Martin to wipe some toothpaste off his chin.  As she finished, they heard the front door open and Dad shouting “I’m home!”.

Mom turned back to finish the hot chocolate and Martin ran into the living room.  There were cardboard boxes with lids opened and tissue paper hanging out. Bright red and green boxes filled with glass balls and bells were sitting on the coffee table.  A smooshed shoe box was sitting on the floor near the tree with “POPCORN” written on the top.

“DAD! YOU’RE HOME!!!  NOW WE CAN DECORATE THE TREE!”, Martin cried.  Dad laughed, “Yes, we can decorate the tree now.  But stop yelling so much please!  I’m standing right here!”.

“Ok.”, Martin mumbled.

“I don’t want to ruin your excitement”, Dad explained, but it’s not necessary to yell when I’m right in front of you.  Now – I can smell chocolate.  Let’s go help Mom with the cups, I’ll break out these candy canes, and we can get started!”

A few minutes later, everyone was standing around the tree.  Dad and Martin wrapped the tree in a bright and festive Christmas blanket to hide the plain brown pot.  The tree’s branches had indeed stretched out and fallen into place.  It was the perfect tree for decorating!!

“Martin, do you know why candy canes are used for decorations at Christmas?”, Dad asked as he handed Martin a handful of candy canes.

“Something to do with shepherds and keeping kids quiet in church.”, Martin replied as he placed the first candy cane on the tree.

Mom giggled, “Well, that is certainly close!  A German legend says that about 350 years ago,  the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral gave out straight white sugar sticks to the children in the choir to help keep them quiet during long Christmas services.  A few years went by and the choirmaster decided to bend the sticks into J shapes so they could represent a Shepherd’s staff, which was a symbolic of Jesus ‘shepherding his flock’.”

“But they didn’t taste like peppermint then.”, Dad added.  “They were just plain white sugar sticks.  It was only about 125 years ago when confectioners started adding red stripes and mint flavors like peppermint and wintergreen.  In fact, candy canes were pretty much a hand made treat until about 100 years ago when Bob McCormack and Father Gregory Keller invented the Keller Machine.  The Keller Machine automatically twisted, bent, and cut the red and white candy into canes.  This is when people were able to purchase candy canes in large amounts to use treats and hang on trees as decorations.”

Mom looked at Martin to see how he was doing hanging the candy canes and started laughing.  Martin had two candy canes stuff into his mouth, with a stick poking out of the left side of his mouth and a hook poking out of the other.  “I can see candy canes can still be used to keep children quiet!”, as she continued laughing.  Dad joined in the laughing and handed Mom a box of glass ornaments to hang.

Mom gazed into the box and sighed wistfully.  These glass ornaments had been hanging on her family’s trees since she was Martin’s age.  There were only a few left.  One red, one green, one gold, and one tarnished silver one.  “Martin?”, Mom mused, “Do you know where these glass ornaments came from?  My parents bought them when I was very little.”

“Germany.” Martin said confidently, muffled by candy canes, but definitely confidently.

“That’s right!”, said Mom.  “How did you know that?”.

Pulling one of the candy canes out of his mouth to speak more clearly, “All the Christmas stuff comes from Germany.”, stated Martin.  “Everyone knows that.”, he said as he rolled his eyes and popped the candy cane back into his mouth.  “Dad, can you hand me few more to hang on the back side”.

Dad passed over a few more candy canes as Mom continued her Christmas ball memories.   “Glass blown ornaments were first made shaped like fruits and nuts.  1847 was not a successful harvest year, so Hans Greiner made beautiful glass ornaments in the shapes of fruits and nuts.  This way people could still decorate their trees.  F.W. Woolworth saw them an-”

“The same as the Woolworth stores?’, Martin interrupted.

“One and the same.”, replied Mom.  She began hanging her ornaments.  “F.W. Woolworth thought they were very pretty and knew the people in America would love them.  So he brought some ornaments with him from Germany to the United States in 1880.  About 50 years later, the Shiny Brite company started making glass ornaments in the United States so they would not have to be imported anymore.”.  She finished hanging her last ornament as she finished.  “There! Those ornaments look so pretty on our tree!”.

Martin was finished hanging the candy canes.  He walked over to the coffee table and picked up a small green box.  He gently opened it and started laughing comically.  “A pickle??”, Martin said through chuckles.  “Why is there a pickle in this box?”.

“Well, it’s another German tradition,” his Dad started, “but strangely, most German’s don’t know about it!  It was either invented by German glass blowers trying to see their ornaments to Americans, or, American glass blowers invented it to compete with the German Christmas Ornaments.  The story is that if you hang a pickle ornament deep in the tree, whoever finds it gets the ‘pickle present’ and good luck for the coming year.”

“That sound fun!”,  Martin smiled!  “Can I hang the pickle ornament?  I can hide it good!”.

“Of course you can!”, said Dad, slightly worried by the mischievous look on Martin’s face.  “But this means you can’t find it and get the ‘pickle present’.”

“What if you and Mom can’t find it?”, Martin countered grinning.

Mom and Dad looked at each other and thought for a moment.  “Ok.”, they agreed.  “You can hide the pickle and if we don’t find it between now and Christmas Day, you get the ‘pickle present’.  Mom was giggling again as she said this.

Dad picked up the shoebox labeled “POPCORN”.  “Let’s hang these popcorn chains, and hang the tinsel, then Mom and I will leave the room to get some coffee while you hide the pickle ornament.”.

“Sounds like a plan!”, Martin said and began rubbing his hands together like a villain while cackling.

Mom, Dad, and Martin all stood around the tree.  They took turns passing the popcorn chains to each other so the chains were nicely draped around the entire tree.  There were a few dried orange slices in the bottom of the “POPCORN” shoe box and Martin hung those while his Mom rummaged around for the tinsel.

“I bet these orange slices and popcorn chains are what the ancients used to use as decorations.”, commented Martin as he placed the last orange slice on a low branch.  “And cranberry strings too.”.

“Yes!”, Dad replied.  “When there were no stores, and no glass blown ornaments, and certainly no glass pickle, families would gather up fruits and nuts to use.  It is pretty to look at the white popcorn hung on the tree.”, Dad mused as he stepped back to look at their work.   Mom finished with the last of the popcorn chains up top and stepped back to view the tree as well.

“It’s tinsel time!”, Martin sang as he started to toss small strands onto the lower branches.  “Do you guys know where tinsel comes from?” his eyes sparkling as he asked his parents.

“No!  I don’t know.  Do you?  Can you tell us?”, Mom said playfully.

“Of course I know this one!  And it’s not even because it’s from Germany, because it’s not! It’s from the Ukraine!”, Martin declared.

“Ukraine?”, Dad exclaimed.

“Yes!  The story is a widow could not afford any decoration for their Christmas tree.  They were so poor, they could not spare any fruits or nuts to decorate with because they needed them for food.  On Christmas Eve, the Widow was sad and crying about not having any decorations.  Some spiders overheard her and wanted to make the tree beautiful and splendid for her and the children for Christmas.   The spiders spent all of Christmas Eve night spinning intricate and ornate webs over and thru the tree branches.  When the Widow and her children woke up, they opened the windows to let in fresh air.” Martin looked at his parents solemnly.  “Too many farts in their sleep made the room stinky.”

Mom and Dad laughed.  “Anyway,” Martin continued, “the sun was coming up and the rays of sunshine lit up the spider webs making them look like the tree had been decorated with silver and gold.  And THAT is why we have tinsel.  To represent the spider webs.  And in the Ukraine, they still hang spider web Christmas ornaments on their trees today!”

“Well that’s a great story!”, said Dad.  “Except for the farts”, laughed Mom.  “Everybody farts Mom.”, smirked Martin.

Dad looked in the cardboard ornament box and pulled out an elaborate box.  It was the last ornament to be hung on the tree.   Dad gently lifted the ornament out for Mom and Martin to look at it closely.  There was a large golden star, with orbiting golden rings, and shooting starts bursting from its center.  When lit, the star cast a shimmering aura of lights and wrapped a celestial glow around the Christmas Tree.

Mom passed Dad the step ladder so he could easily reach the top of the tree.  As he placed the Star in it’s position on top, he asked Martin if he knew which star this was.

“It’s the Star of Bethlehem and it told the Wise Men where to go.”,  Martin replied.  He sighed in awe as mom plugged in the Star, filling the living room with a warm radiance.

Mom, Dad, and Martin all sat down on the couch to look at their tree.  It was decorated so beautifully with candy canes, and glass ornaments, and fruits, and a shining star.

Dad’s tummy growled loudly, and Martin burst out laughing.  Mom looked at her watch.  “Well, that did take some time and Dad did miss breakfast by leaving to pick up the candy canes.  Let’s go into the kitchen and have  an early lunch.

As Martin walked in to the kitchen, he took one last glance at the newly decorated tree.  He couldn’t wait to get back in there and hide that pickle!