Messy Christmas Magic

There’s magic everywhere.

Even in the mess.

Especially in the mess.

We put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. That’s our tradition.

And we fill it full of memories: the glued pasta cardboard wreath my daughter made when she was 3. Her first pair of mittens, pink with no thumbs. A pine cone covered in glitter. She used to roll her eyes, but now she’s 41 and has three children of her own, so she knows those are the most important ornaments. The homemade messy kind.

Then there are the glamorous ones. My husband’s brother buys us Waterford crystal ornaments that have elevated the art of decorating our tree. They’re stunning when the angel, the stocking and the wreath catch the miniature lights and spread glittery light all over the room.

When we finished decorating, the tree looked glorious.

Someone even hid the Christmas pickle, a fragile ornament shaped like a dill pickle. It’s a German tradition to hide one. Whoever finds it wins a gift, in our house, a chocolate coin.

So I was standing in the living room admiring the tree when CRASH! It seemed to have broken in half and crashed to the wood floor.

Standing next to the tree, actually standing IN the tree, was my 6-year-old granddaughter. She was covered in shattered ornaments.

“Don’t move!” We shouted, afraid she’d be sliced up if she took a step or a breath.
As we gently air-lifted her away from the tree, she kept crying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I couldn’t find the Christmas pickle.”

I think in her magical eyes, it was a real tree that she tried to climb to get to the pickle.

All day the tree stood forlorn in two pieces until we ran to the store to buy a new tree stand, since the fall bruised it too badly. While we were at the store, my daughter called and told us to leave and head straight home.

When we did, we pulled in the drive and the Christmas tree looked as stunning as ever, standing tall in one piece. No mess. Just magic.

My daughter had sneaked over with her own tree stand, righted the tree and re-decorated it.

“It’s a Christmas miracle!” we all joked.
And in some ways it was.

Out of all the perfect Hallmark Christmas holidays we’ve had, this will likely be the one we remember and cherish the most. The year the tree broke. The year the ornaments crashed. The year we didn’t care how the tree looked, because the little girl who believed in Santa and Christmas pickle magic was okay.

She never did find the pickle. Her brother, who is 10, hid it so well, no one found it. Until today.

When I took down the tree, after I removed every single ornament, as I pulled off the last branch, I heard a tinkling sound, almost like a bell as it fell.

The pickle landed gently onto the red soft skirt still tucked around the tree.
Not a scratch on it. It looked like a big green smile.

I smiled back. Yes, it will go on the tree next year.