librarian librarian

It’s down. 

I finally took it down today.  It’s not even the end of January and I did it.

I took the Christmas tree down, the Angel one. 

Normally, I put up two Christmas trees.  One has all the keepsake and traditional ornaments along with some not-so-traditional ornaments.  I hang things like a pair of Lauren’s baby shoes and a set of her diaper pins (yes, she wore cloth diapers for a time when she was a wee babe) and I have a baby bib of Jacob’s and one of his baby blue hats that go on the tree.  Then there’s all the other things like so many moms put on their trees:  things the kids made in preschool and school, those ornaments with the year stamped on them like Lion King (the first movie Jacob saw in a theatre), ornaments from students I’ve taught, etc. 

The Angel tree, I started it about ten to fifteen years ago after talking with LouAnn B.  She told me about all the trees that she decorates each year in and outside her home, and her Angel tree grabbed hold of me and I knew I just had to have one.  I started collecting angel ornaments that year from the local dollar store.  My 6 ft. Angel tree is now covered each year with Angels and I have close family and friends who enjoy buying angel ornaments for my tree. 

My Angel tree was particularly a favorite of my mother who died this past July.  She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s early summer of 2009 and within a few months she was living in a nursing home.  Her last Christmas, year before last, we’d bring her out to my house for day visits and she’d look up at the Angel tree.  Her face.  Oh, I can see her face as she smiled and her eyes twinkled.  That Angel tree  brought her such pleasure.

She loved pretty things.  Always took pleasure in decorating her home and seeing me decorate my home.  And every year at Christmas, she loved my Angel Christmas tree.  I have always used white lights on it and about six years ago, mama and I were shopping in McRae’s (now Belk) in Laurel and we found some pearl Christmas tree beads.  They’ve been on my Angel tree each year since!  It really is a pretty tree with angels ranging from a stacked marshmallow snowman-looking angel to a hand-painted paper bag cutout & stitched angel (made by Dee Young) to soft cotton muslim angels to shiny silver and gold wire angels.

We’d bring mama home from the nursing home for a visit during Christmas that year, and she’d come in and see that Angel tree with pearl beads, white lights, and all the different angels … Her face was like that of a kid in a candy store and a hundred dollar bill to spend.  That tree brought such pleasure to her. 

Every visit during that Christmas season, each time she saw the tree it was like the first time she had ever seen it.  Her short term memory was nonexistant and the magic of seeing that pretty tree was new to her each time I brought her home with me.

Christmas Day passed and it came time to take the trees down.  The traditional tree came down, but I just could not take that Angel tree down.  I thought about how mama’s face lit up when she came to my house and saw the tree “for the first time.” 

The Angel tree did not come down.

I think it was late February or perhaps early March before I finally dismantled the Angel tree that year.  I kept it up for mama.  She had no sense of seasons and no idea of whether or not Christmas had passed or was yet to come.  But, she lit up when she saw the Angel tree and THAT was what mattered.  Something gave her pleasure.  Something made her smile.  Made her happy.

So, Christmas season approached this year and I thought and thought about that Angel tree. 

I decied I would not put it up this year.  I explained to my husband and kids that I just didn’t think I could put it up.  This was our first Christmas without mama.  My plans were to put up the traditional tree and just pass on the Angel tree for this year.  It would be too painful.  It would bring back too many painful memories.

Turns out, it’s the only tree we did put up this year. 

It wasn’t a difficult process getting the tree up and decorated.  Not like I had thought it would be, although I did postpone putting it up much later than I normally do.  Much, much later.

Putting up the traditional tree has always been a family effort, but my angel tree has always been a “me” thing.  Something I do by myself.  I enjoy taking each of my angels out of storage, unwrapping them from the tissue, and thinking of when I got that particular one or who gave it to me or how pretty it is or how soft it is or … I just like touching each one of them.

However, once the tree was up and decorated with the lights on and the pretty pearl beads wrapped loosely around and about the Angels …

I fell apart.  Came completely undone.

It continued to be difficult for a couple of weeks, seeing that tree.  I was sad, sad, sad.  I missed her something awful.  I found no pleasure in the holidays.  I just missed my mama. 

But.  It did get better.  It got easier seeing the Angel tree and I did enjoy it.  I wasn’t always sad when looking at it. 

And after Christmas?  I couldn’t take the tree down!

Then I could take the tree down and my son asked me not to take the tree down.

So the tree didn’t come down. 

Until today.  Today, the Angel tree came down.

And, today, I am fine.

When Lauren asked me where we’re going on vacation this year, it brought back fond memories of last year’s vacation.  Memories of the beautiful mountains of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

One Friday night last summer, my brother-in-law (Donnie’s twin) drove up with his family from Baton Rouge and spent the night with us.  We planned to set out at daybreak Saturday morning for Gatlinburg. 

What a an adventure this trip turned out to be. 

First thing Saturday morning, before I even got breakfast cooked, my sister-in-law was popping a Phenergan for naseau.   Stomach bug.

Not to be deterred, we loaded up and headed out.  Three hours later we hit a snag in Birmingham …. traffic was backed up for miles and miles and miles.  It took forever to travel 3 little miles to finally get OFF the Interstate to take a detour.  Forever as in hours.

I always kinda liked brother-in-law’s Envoy.  BEFORE this trip.  By the time we made it into Pigeon Forge I was hoping he would trade vehicles before we headed home.

We spent the first two nights in this cabin….

Out our back door and down a little mountainside hill we had this wonderful little creek …

Driving up the mountain to this cabin, I kept wondering how in the world we would ever manage to get up and down this road if it rained.  But, the drive was beautiful.

The road was a pigtrail.  Dirt and gravel.  Wide enough for only one veicle.  That picture?  That picture was taken while I was IN THE VAN driving up the mountain.  I did not get out of the van to snap that photo and didn’t have to use the zoom to get the shot.

There.  In the bottom left corner of that picture.  See the van?  We are on the “road” to our cabin.  Our tires rolled along in ruts that dug into the road making the middle of the road higher.  It periodically scraped the underside of the vehicles. Well, it was scraping the underside of our van.  My brother-in-law’s Envoy ahead of us made it just fine. 

The van didn’t fare as well.  We punctured something underneath the van and trailed liquid for a little ways, but we didn’t know that until we arrived at the cabin.  The guys checked the van and well, we would be headed to a repair shop the next morning – since it was late afternoon vehicle repair shops were all closed. 

It was a nice little place, though, our cabin.  Tucked back in the MOUNTAINS!  And the little creek was just great.

See that little path they’re standing on?  Well, our road didnt’ look much better than that.

Do they look worried about the van that may cost an arm and leg to be repaired?

Early the next morning, we headed back down the pigtrail mountain to find an auto repair shop, my brother- and sister-in-law following along behind Donnie and me.  As we headed down the mountain we could see the trail of transmission fluid we had left the previous afternoon.  Not a good sign.  Donnie and I feared we were going to have to replace something to do with the transmission that HE said would be expensive, expensive, EXPENSIVE.  I can’t remember what he said it was, but I remember he said it was going to cost alota $$$.

But, later that afternoon we returned to the repair shop to pick up the van and it wasn’t as bad as we’d feared.  It was not the “out the wazoo expensive thing” my husband had feared it would be and we prayerfully made it back up the mountain … my brother- and sister-in-law dutifully following behind us, eyes peeled on our tail end to make sure we didn’t leave a new trail of transmission fluid. 

Oh, me.  The second night was not so good.  For me.  I caught the bug my sister-in-law had started the trip with and “I” took a pheneragan. 

Slept in the next morning, which wasn’t a bad thing since my wonderful husband was taking all our teens to Dollywood.  I secretly had never planned on enjoying that part of the vacation, but NOW I had a valid excuse to stay behind. 

I DON’T do this …

 

… even when I’m NOT sick!

NOT my idea of vacation.  But Donnie and the teenagers had a ball; Donnie rode as much as the kids.

Meanwhile back at the ranch cabin, the water tank was uncooperative.  Wouldn’t work.  Repairman couln’t get the tank to fill up completely on a regular basis.

So, while part of our vacation crew lived it up at Dollywood, the rest of us loaded up the truck (Envoy) and we moved to Beverly, new cabin that is ….

We weren’t thrilled about the move, especially since we were only staying 4 nights.  But our new digs were quite nice and we felt like big dogs in our three story, five bedroom, 4 bath mansion on the hill.  My sister-in-law did have quite a time with the electronic door lock, but we finally got inside and unloaded – again.  The agent said she had “upgraded” us and we sure felt upgraded alright. 

We had a nice balcony and grilled burgers.  It was a nice afternoon.  The four adults climbing down into the hot tub is another blog story.  If you know Uncle Ron … nuff said.

There was a problem with the air and we spent the night in misery, raised all the ground floor windows, turned all ceiling fans on high and all lights off.  The third floor bedrooms for us adults were quite cool, but the bottom two floors were quite warm.  Poor teenagers.  Cool adults and hey, who paid for the cabin anyway? 

We called and called and complained and complained the next day about the air conditioner.  I’m afraid the realtor was quite aggravated with us.   She insisted a repairman had checked the air and said it was working fine.  We were not happy campers.  When my sister-in-law stormed into the realtor’s office to make our complaint a bit more firm, well, things got heated and they threw my sister-in-law out of the office.

Anyway, us gals went shopping later that morning and left the guys at home in the heat. 

We hadn’t been shopping but a couple hours when the guys opened the door to …

… another real estate agent who was wondering WHAT in the world were doing in that cabin. ”This cabin is not rented,” she explained. 

“I know,” my brother-in-law told her, “but, there was a problem with the water in our first cabin so the realtor put us in this cabin.”  Ms Realtor said she knew nothing about that and asked for the name of the realty company we were using. 

Guess what?  It wasn’t her company.

We were in the WRONG cabin.

A frantic call from my brother-in-law sent us girls flying back up the mountain to pack and be OUT OF THE CABIN in 30 minutes!  I remember the drive back to the cabin after our short shopping excursion.  There’d be a few minutes of complete silence and then one of us would break out in laughter and we’d all lose it.  Could NOT beleive we had spent the night in a cabin that was not ours! 

The realtor was very nice, but insistant that we vacate in 30 minutes.  Please keep in mind how long it takes to pack for vacation.  And we had two families and groceries and kitchen gadgets and clothes that were hanging in closets and tucked into dressers. UGH.  My sister-in-law and I had just did this like YESTERDAY !!! 

And after all that complaining about the air conditioner….They really had sent a repairman!  He had been to the RIGHT CABIN which turned out to be pretty “cool” when we got there.  

So, the cabin where we were supposed to be staying  … here it is. 

Our third cabin of a four night vacation.

And, it was a nice cabin.  

 

Remember the second cabin?  See how we pulled up to the cabin?

 

And now the third cabin again …

Notice we backed up to the cabin for our THIRD unpacking of this four night vacation. You just don’t tend to be as confident pulling into your third cabin as you were for your first and second cabins.

As we packed up from cabin #2 we were all in fast mode.  We had 30 minutes and everyone was frantically trying to sling things into the cars.  I think we all did a good bit of laughing.  No one was happy about packing and moving again, but to think we had spent the night illegally in a cabin … too much.  What a hoot.

Later when we got unloaded at cabin #3, ha ha, we reached a point where it wasn’t funny.  See my brother-in-law sitting on the sofa.  Not happy.  Uncle Ron.  He is not happy.

I’m somewhere upstairs definitely not happy.  I was really a grouch.  I remember.  I couldn’t help it.  But, I love my sister-in-law.  See her in the kitchen? 

She’s making us something that will make us feel better !!!  And it did, it was a good night. 

Oh, and we missed out on white water rafting.  Scheduling was a little weird – turns out rafting trips are only offered on certain days – and we didn’t plan that in advance.  Donnie and the guys were extremely disappointed, but they enjoyed a little go-garting.  Donnie included.

I dont’ know what’s up with Landon in this picture and Jacob doesn’t look like he had a good time, but he really did.

  Lauren had more fun than the guys.

 I did get a shot of Landon, but Jake and Jonathan raced by too fast.  Jonathan, friend of Landon, what a story he had to tell his folks when he got home. 

   And Don, he gets in there with these kids.

Does he know how old he is?  You know what he would say?  He would say, “You’re as young as you feel, baby!”

Yeah, right.  I watched him crawl out of that go-cart, too.  Getting outta the cart for him had a “rolling the body hello ground” maneuver to it.

We had a nice relaxing last night in our third cabin.  Uncle Ron and Lauren discussed our next “family” vacation.  

       and they decided …

 … we won’t make reservations next time.  We’ll just see what cabin(s) we can get into!  Cabin Hopping!

Four nights, three cabins. 

It’s one we won’t forget!

Just look at these happy campers.  Gotta love family vacations!

 ~ June 2007 ~