Christmas Trees Revisited

Every so often around this time of year, I like to revisit the Christmas trees we've decorated as a family through the years. It brings back a lot of nostalgic memories.

In July, 1970 I'd gone on a college trip to Japan and stayed afterwards at my grandfather's temple for three weeks meeting family in Sendai for the first time. It was my first overseas trip.

I had not yet met Art. I lived in an apartment with three other friends next to the University of Hawaii. This was our tree.

1972, Art was in my life. We were engaged. He and my brother got to be good friends.

My life was changing.

In 1976, we had moved to Chicago and our daughter, Tiffany was our pride and joy. We didn't have an evergreen green then for Christmas, but decorated our palm tree.

1980 was the year our family became complete when our son Keola joined the family after being born in the hospital elevator with Art delivering his son himself.

The years flew by.

In 1990, Keola was in middle school and Tiffany was learning to drive! She could hardly wait to get her license and unlike me, she drives EVERYWHERE today. We also got an artificial tree for the first time. I was teaching 1st grade and loving it.

1999 came too quickly. Tiffany was now working in Chicago. Keola was at the university.

In 2000, Keola had graduated from college, was adventuring somewhere and said he was joining the Peace Corps and going to Africa.

Our lives were changing by 2006. Art and I were both retired. My father passed away and we had to return home to Hawaii to take care of mom. I'll always be grateful to Art for being OK with this. It was very difficult leaving our new granddaughter, daughter and son-in-law in Chicago. 

Keola was off living his life everywhere by then but would visit us in Hawaii.

This year, we had difficulty getting started with our holiday decorating or planning. Art set up our small (what we THOUGHT was temporary when our 2 year old grandson came to visit a few years ago) tree, but we somehow couldn't get motivated to putting on the ornaments. I finally put the garland on one day and left it alone. Art's thoughts were already moving onto 2023. 

However, when a present from Chicago arrived from Tiffany and family several days later, we finally got our focus onto this year's holiday and completed the decorating.

I confess we are missing our children, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, but 2023 is promising to bring us together. 

I'm looking forward to that.

Merry Christmas everybody! I am loving seeing the fun times you are all enjoying right now.

POSTSCRIPT:

Mom is always out (when weather permits) on the street sweeping up leaves from the big tree outside on the parkway.

Yesterday a couple of "older people who often go out walking" according to mom gave her a Christmas package and thanked her for keeping the neighborhood clean.

What a sweet holiday greeting and it certainly brought smiles to mom's face.

(And not to worry... I did check before letting her eat it. They are all safe prepackaged goodies.)