Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Christmas Scenes

 
     My mom held up a large, plastic container of glitter. It was full of large, white flakes. "What do think of this one?"

     "I don't like the big flakes, and the color is boring," I replied.

     Then she picked up a small, glass vial of glitter. It was super-fine iridescent white with glints of lavender and green. "Do you like this one?"

     I could see so many possibilities open up with this glitter. It was so tiny, it could disappear into a crafting project, only allowing you access to its beauty by glinting at you flirtatiously as you turned it in the light. The lavender would appeal to my mom, who's favorite color was purple. The green appealed to me. "I love it. What's it for?"

     "You'll see," my mom announced as she continued to scan the shelves of the craft store. "Look at these miniature teddy bears. Aren't they cute?"

     "They are if you tell me what they're for."

     "Sorry, but it's a surprise." My mom grabbed a few packages of the teddy bears, some miniature boxes wrapped in foil and tied up with a gold string, several large slabs of Styrofoam,  a bag of large colorful beads and some green spray paint. "Let's go to the toy store next."

     "Are you expecting an argument from me?" I took the stuff from her and put it on the counter to help speed things along. "Hurry. I want to look at the new Christmas toys."

     The woman rang us up, and we were on our way. Once at the toy store, I headed for the fashion doll aisle, but I wasn't there long before realizing that my mom was not with me. I checked each aisle until I found her in the boy toy section. She was picking out toy cars and miniature bicycles. "What are those for?"

     "Stop asking, Deb. I'm not going to tell you."

     I threw my hands up in surrender and went back to look at my favorite toys. After a few minutes, my mom appeared and asked if I was ready to go. "Can I have some candy?"

     "One thing."

     I walked over to the register area to look at the choices. It was always a hard decision when faced with such limitation. Should I get the molded candy shaped like bones that came in a little plastic coffin, the tube of gel that turned into bubble gum or the candy necklace? I went for the candy necklace, and we made our purchases before leaving the mall.

     When we got home, my mom went out to what had once been my playhouse, but now served more for storage. She came back with a large basket of pinecones she had gathered from our yard. We had a long-needle pine tree, and it gave us pinecones three times larger than regular pine trees. "Go inside and set up with hot glue gun," my mom instructed.

     I went inside and got the glue gun out of its storage, plugged it in and set it on top of a piece of cardboard on the table to catch any stray drips. Then I headed back outside to find my mom spray painting the pinecones. I desperately wanted to ask her yet again what she was up to, but I knew it was useless, so I started taking her the unpainted pinecones and putting the painted ones on some newspaper she had set out.

     We let the pinecones dry before bringing them inside, and then my mom handed me some school glue and the new vial of glitter. "Make it look like snow."

     I felt my heart leap in my chest. I was in charge of the glitter. It spoke to my soul. I started dapped on glue and carefully sprinkling the glitter on and tapping off the excess into a bowl to be reused. After finishing the glitter, my mom handed me the bag of beads. "Decorate the tree."

     The craft project began to come together in my head at last. Using the hot glue gun, I decorated the tree with beautiful glass ornaments in various colors. These were not designer trees done a specific style or color but down home trees decorated by a child. As I would finish a tree, my mom would take it from me and glue it onto the Styrofoam base. Then she would glue down the toys.

     That year for Christmas, we gave friends and family a beautiful Christmas scene fit for any miniature child who would love to wake up to a toy car, a teddy bear, a brand new bicycle, and presets loving wrapped under a snow-glittered tree.

No comments:

Post a Comment