Ornament Memories

A nostalgic Christmas tree

Inspiration for these stories came from this post.

It’s 2021, and we’re in Boston for the first leg of our trip to Maine, where our friends Matthew and Sophie are getting married.

New England in the fall is as magical as it seems from the photos: Our drive from Boston to Camden was full of leaves so beautiful, they almost looked fake.

And we stayed in a personal top 5 hotel for me, an old ship captain’s mansion turned into an inn with charming rooms, fire pits out back, and a breakfast spread with granola and scones I’m still thinking about four years later.

But perhaps the most memorable moment of the trip was the morning we sat outside a Dunkin in an outdoor shopping center, splitting a bag of donut holes and watching the construction workers stream in and out of the shop with their morning coffees. I was pregnant with Foster, still deep in the clutches of morning sickness. Any woman who has been pregnant knows that when something soothes your fickle stomach, it‘s better than all the beautiful leafy drives or any picturesque hotel. Perhaps we should have gotten a donut hole ornament to commemorate this trip instead. After all, they were the fuel I needed to actually complete part of the Freedom Trail that day.¹

It’s 1995, and we’re in Tennessee on Christmas Day to celebrate with our grandparents. It’s a typical Christmas of my childhood: We wake up at the crack of dawn, rip through presents at our house, then drive the 5 hours to East Tennessee. Our first stop is lunch at Mamaw and Papaw’s house, with more presents and Mamaw’s potato candy and at least one old-timey nonsense song bellowed out by Papaw, probably about bed bugs in the county jail. After that, we drive three minutes down the road to Grandmom and Granddad’s house. Here, we find lightly controlled chaos: Grandmom is the youngest of seven kids, and all of them, plus all of their kids, come to her house on Christmas Day. There are folding tables in every room, two hams, a turkey, more sausage balls than you’ve ever seen in your life, and at least 15 pies.

In the middle of the madness, I pluck an angel ornament off Grandmom’s tree to admire it. She tells me it’s mine, to keep it.

Thirty years later, Foster picks up that same ornament and gazes at it with wonder in his eyes. “Wow,” he whispers. “So ‘parkly.” He will never experience a 90s Tennessee Christmas (and with his introverted personality, that might be for the best), but that’s how they feel in my memory. So ‘parkly.

It’s 2025, the wee hours of a mid March morning. I’m just starting to feel the urge to push out the baby I’ve been carrying for nine months — a baby whose gender we will finally know after a long wait.

I’m convinced we’re having another boy, and frankly, I’m thrilled. Another tiny little guy just like my sweet Foster? If that’s what boys are, sign me up.

The things I looked forward to with kids were never tied to gender: I didn’t imagine suiting up a tiny football player, or applying makeup to a face before prom night.

Instead, I pictured taking kids on trips and baking cookies with them. Reading book after book after book, anything they wanted, any time they asked. I imagined jumping with them into a swimming pool and cheering at their school events and making their Halloween costumes.

And so, twenty-eight minutes later, when an all-female team (foreshadowing!) of doctors and nurses plops a baby on my chest, and I’m so overwhelmed with joy, and suddenly I hear Tanner say it’s a GIRL —

I can’t believe it.

And it doesn’t change a thing.

Because as it turns out, I didn’t want a boy. And I didn’t want a girl.

I wanted this baby. I wanted Sally. I wanted MY girl, to accompany MY boy.

And while I’ll do my best to let her be whoever she wants to be, tomboy or princess or something in between, I did find her the glitteriest pink bow ornament for her first Christmas. Because yes, little boys are sweet and wild and loud and sensitive and a million other good things.

But it’s also really fun to be a glittery pink girl.

1. Other foods to which I could write love letters for the ways they momentarily stopped my overwhelming desire to throw up: tiny cans of Coke, endless packs of Nabs, and one particularly good Wendy’s taco salad.