How Oma Decked the Tree

The Little Prince, a.k.a. my precious grandson, was coming for Christmas! At not-quite two, he would be the first little one we'd had around in twenty-eight years. He is the light of our lives and I wanted this time to be full of joy and laughter, not, "No! Don't touch!" and tears. Knowing this visit was coming, the year before I'd bought a slew of unbreakable ornaments at the after-Christmas sales. I'd also decided to skip the other house decorations, many of which are fragile or posed other hazards--mostly to my mental health. I briefly considered putting out the creche, which I normally consider essential to Christmas, but we bought that set in Germany nearly forty years ago. The figures are hand-carved and he was teething. Enough said. Back to the tree. I had four new boxes of 30 ornaments each. Because some of the balls had glitter on them, I opened the first box carefully. They went straight in the trash. Glitter is subversive. No matter how careful I am, it sneaks in everywhere. Never mind my hands, my clothes, and the food I prepare. Once, dressing for a formal dinner, I found several flakes highlighting my husband's left eye. Careful as I tried to be, the kitchen table still had a light coating of glitter after I'd emptied the box. I figured some of it had piggy-backed onto the plain ornaments, and there were a few that had a very small amount I hadn't noticed. They joined the others in the trash. Lastly, there were two sets of half-circles that had been packed face-to-face. When separated--voila!--masses of glitter. My sigh sent more flakes into orbit. Obviously, I'm not going to use those little metal hooks to hang the balls. We raised three children without ever spending any part of Christmas in the E.R. I didn't plan on ruining my record. In the ornament box was a packet of short, silver threads. Trying to tie the first one set my teeth on edge. They were too thin and slick. What else could I use? The proverbial light bulb went off in my head. I had bought red and white twisted cord at IKEA. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, I just liked it. It looked great, although it wasn't perfect to work with. It was stiff and took a lot of tugging to keep the double knots from loosening up. I briefly envisioned all the knots simultaneously coming undone and all the balls hitting the floor en masse. I added a third knot. I got a blister. Then I discovered a new problem: the red and white cord looked awful on the gold balls. I needed another option. There was a brown and gold ball of cord at IKEA, but I didn't want to drive 40 minutes just for that. Yarn was the only alternative I could think of, so I dug out my stash. The yarn looked limp and fuzzy on the shiny balls. Pathetic really. Back to IKEA. At home, I repeated the cutting and tugging. I got more blisters...but the balls looked great. Thankfully, our new tree had the LED lights permanently attached, and it had been assembled, so I started hanging the ornaments. Some slid off--the cord was slick; some came apart--the little tops popped off, and happily back on, very easily. Eventually, I got them all hung. By the time I'd finished, it was well into the evening. I collapsed onto the sofa, sending up little puffs of glitter around me, and fell asleep. The tree had decked me.