(no subject)

[rivka]

Ben and I just got home from the grocery store to find curiousangel holding up the Christmas tree, shards of silvered glass strewn across the living room floor.

We decorated it this afternoon. It looked beautiful, and then it fell.

Ben and Michael got the tree securely back into its stand. I swept up the broken ornaments, and cried while I did it. My gorgeous, vibrant glass gecko wearing a santa hat - broken. One of the first ornaments I ever owned myself - a real blown egg, painted deep purple, with a tiny cityscape and a tiny flying Santa's sleigh within intricately worked silver and blue borders - broken. The clear glass globe hand-painted with a drawing of our church - broken. The set of old-fashioned colored glass Santas we bought for our first tree together - all broken. Half of the tiny holly balls - broken.

It's miraculous, I guess, how many things didn't break. The little stained-glass angel choir and the matching stained-glass dove of peace are okay. The long, heavy, blue glass icicles Ben gave me were thick enough not to break. Miraculously, the two antique glass ornaments which belonged to my grandparents were unbroken - the glass peacock was even still on the tree, because it clips on rather than hanging. And the irreplacable little red glass ornament heavily hand-glittered with the name "Mike N" in childish letters - not broken.

It's a gorgeous tree, it really is. If I'd been along on the trip to pick it out, I would've said it was too big - but Michael and Ben went by themselves, and they came back with an eight foot tall, enormously full Douglas Fir. It dominates the living room so much that we had to rearrange all of the furniture. We had to buy more lights. Its fragrance fills the room. It really is a beautiful, beautiful tree.

We haven't redecorated yet. The ornaments are sitting in little piles on the rocking chair, on the steps, on the dining room table. Right now I don't really feel like putting them back up.

Comments

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh, dear. I'm glad some of the most precious and irreplaceable are still okay. I remember crying bitterly when the last present my father ever bought me was stolen.

Does your tree have a theme? Is it mostly glass, or is it just the the glass ones were the majority of the broken ones?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It's not mostly glass, fortunately, or it would be mostly broken. We've got a mix of things, ranging from a weird kitschy plastic-bead winter scene from Michael's childhood (so bizarrely unhip that it has become hip again) to these sleek heavy modern glass icicles Ben gave me. No preferred color, no preferred style. Not all of them are even pretty - there's an orange-and-white plastic ball with the University of Tennessee logo, for example. (It didn't break.)

If my grandparents' ornaments had broken, I would really be falling to pieces right now. But I mourn my painted egg so much.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

If you could show me a picture of it...no, it wouldn't be the same, having a pale-echo copy, would it? But now that I know that your ornament collection isn't restricted in scope (I'd have been surprised if it was, knowing you and Misha) ...

If you have most of the pieces of your broken egg...I have some ideas for what could be done with it, if it wouldn't be too awful to see the remains.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We've already thrown out the shards.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I figured as much. Probably full of all sort of ick in addition to glass.