sand dollars on the tree

C and I found advent calendars at Central Market in November, and though we had seen them in past years, this year, we broke down and bought them. It reminds me a lot of when I was a little kid, and Advent was my first introduction to the liturgical calendar. My grandmother, who is a Methodist minister, was really the only religious influence in my life when I was a little kid, but it was important to her that I understood that there was more to Christmas than Santa Claus.

It was an added advantage that Advent sometimes began on my birthday, at the end of November; it made it easier to remember. But when I was a little kid, the Advent calendar was one of the best parts of the month leading up to Christmas. Every day, there was a special treat when I'd open the little cardstock door marked with the date.

The Advent calendar I have this year has chocolate inside it, each piece molded into a different shape, but I think the ones I had when I was a kid were just pictures. It was the ultimate resistance to temptation not to open the doors before the day arrived. It's one of those traditions that makes me nostalgic.

Here in Austin, we don't really do much Christmas preparation. Last year, we hung Christmas lights, but this year, due to C's comps (which ended this morning at 9am -- yay!) we haven't done anything but open the windows of our Advent calendars. It doesn't really make sense to buy a tree when we spend most of the holiday in Corpus Christi with my family.

I don't know if my mom is buying a tree this year. I've been a bit afraid to ask; she's spent more time here in Austin than down in Corpus Christi lately. Growing up, it was always of utmost importance to me to have everything the way we always did it. Every year, we'd buy a noble fir. We'd string it with two strands of white Christmas lights and one strand of red lights, and then we'd hang sand dollars all over it. My mom collected a big box full of sand dollars on the beach over the years, and they symbolize "Christmas at home" to me in a way that nothing else can.

After the sand dollars come the red apple ornaments and the red pepper ornaments. I love the tree in that unfinished state; the vivid reds, whites, and greens are so beautiful. After that, we'd hang all the other ornaments, as many as would fit on the branches of the noble fir. Most of the ornaments date back to before I can remember, and it's part of the challenge of Christmas to find specific ones and put them on the tree.

The most sentimental ornaments to me are the fabric birds made by my grandmother. When I was little, every year, she would make me a birthday dress in November, and then she'd use the scraps of the fabrics to make me a bird ornament to match. The birds hang on the boughs of the tree as though they nest there, in the pinks, blues, and purples of my birthday dresses.

I'm starting to think I'm going to have to take charge of the Christmas tree tradition at my mom's house this year, if she isn't going to do it.