VERSIONS OF US

Michael and Cindy 2018

16 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Michael and Cindy 2018"

Michael and I choose a new ornament for the tree every year. The ornament is supposed to reflect something about us and the year. Our first year ornament makes absolutely no sense. Santa is riding a giant trout and there’s a fishing pole dangling out of Santa’s hand. It’s ridiculous and confusing. And completely appropriate for the time. This was probably six months after we first met; four months after he had officially moved in. We were ridiculous and confusing. The second year we bought a record player ornament. It was the year Michael had set up his record player and I bought a bunch of Doris Day albums. Later ornaments would be a camper (of course) and something Star Wars. Then we stumbled upon two ornaments that carried an odd resemblance to us. The guy had a curled mustache and wore an orange sweater. The girl sported a stocking cap on her cropped brown hair. They were ornament versions of us.

This would become a recurring thing. We now have two small doll like ornaments. One doll is wearing a plaid shirt with hiking boots. He’s sporting a medium length beard and holding a small Christmas tree. The girl version is bundled up in a coat and scarf. She’s holding ski poles even though there are no skis on her feet. The resemblance is uncanny. The two ornaments look so much like us that we even considered using them in our Christmas card. Maybe I did. I vaguely remember taking a crappy picture of the Cabbage holding the two dolls. Michael and I were looking around Target on Saturday for this year’s ornament and I heard him say “Hey look! It’s us!” I turned around to see him holding up a gnome with a long beard and girl doll wearing a cap and scarf. I guess a cap and scarf are my go to winter looks, but I busted out laughing at the idea of these two being the ornament versions of us. They are by far the most hilarious versions we’ve come across. We bought them along with a seal ornament because this year we saw a lot of seals.

Earlier in the day we had been talking about Christmas cards and pictures for the cards. I always start out with an intention to take or have someone take a nice festive picture of the three of us, but it is so hard to coordinate. It doesn’t help that the Cabbage is in that poser stage where it is more reasonable to believe that one can collect marshmallow poop from unicorns then it is to get a genuine smile from her. For this year’s card, I didn’t even try. I just used some random pictures I’ve taken this year and I’m perfectly happy with this. As we talked about the cards, Michael mentioned the idea of us wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. I winced slightly and replied that Chris and I had already done that. Chris and I used to plan out elaborate Christmas cards. We took joy in the whole process. It was like preparing for our very own Christmas pageant and we would start making our plans for the photo shoot in October, gathering costume materials and backdrops. People looked forward to what we’d do for the next year. I’m not going to lie. That first Christmas after Chris died and I had to put Hooper down, I considered photographing their coffee cans of ashes wearing Christmas hats for my card. I didn’t because I figured there was less than a handful of people who would see the dark humor in this. Everyone else would just see it as the the sad country song that it really was.

I don’t even attempt the elaborate Christmas card with Michael and the Cabbage for a number of reasons, but mostly because I’m not trying to recreate a life I had. The things that made sense for me to do in my relationship with Chris doesn’t make sense to do in my relationship with Michael. Because it is not the same relationship. Chris and I had our own thing. We made silly Christmas cards. Michael and I have our own thing. We find versions of ourselves in Christmas ornaments.

THINGS I'D RATHER NOT

Barbara and the Snowman

"Barbara and the Snowman"

While Michael was out Saturday doing his Christmas shopping, I stayed home to put up the Christmas tree and make stockings for the pets and Christmasfy the house. First off, let me tell you about making stockings. This required me to use a sewing machine and we all know that my relationship with my sewing machine is not good. We don't care for each other at all. When I dragged it out of storage, dusted it off and plugged it in, I anticipated a large amount of swearing. For some reason, loading a bobbin correctly is the hardest thing to do, but after the second try and a little sewing on a test piece of fabric, everything seemed to be working normally. The next thing I knew, I was sewing along like I knew what I was doing, pulling pins as I went and storing them between my lips like my momma taught me. There was a brief moment when things were going so well that I looked around to see if any one was watching and I thought "who the fuck is this person using a sewing machine?!?!"

It took me longer to get the sewing machine out and then put away than it did to do the actually sewing. This was also kind of true for decorating the tree. It took longer to bring up the boxes than it did to put the ornaments on the tree. Michael and I had discussed before I even started that maybe I shouldn't put anything important out and on the tree this year. It's the first Christmas with a puppy and a cat. Josephine has already removed and destroyed one cardboard elephant from the tree, as well as tiny bearded gnome. I have sprayed the cat many times with a can of compressed air. It was agreed that by "important" we both were talking about my Babar ornament. I was totally amazed that Chris was able to find a replacement that one time. I could not tempt fate and expect to find Babar a third time. Most of my ornaments are plastic or paper or cloth, so I went ahead and just put everything except Babar on the tree. 

Every Christmas, since we've been together, Michael and I have picked out an ornament for the tree that is an "us" ornament. The first year, we picked out a Santa riding a trout. It made zero sense, but it was ridiculous and seemed to be fitting because we hadn't really been in our relationship long enough to have an idea of what represented "us". The second year we picked out a record player because I had gotten Michael's record player fixed and I had purchased a bunch of Dorris Day and Barbara Streisand records. Cleaning days were a mix of his records and mine, with me singing along to all of them. This year we had plans to get a VW bus ornament because that's all we seem to be able to talk about these days, but when we went to the store, they were sold out. We settled on an R2D2 and Darth Vader set because the new Star Wars movie comes out Friday and we have tickets to see it Saturday. (Buying Star Wars ornaments with Michael is a little I don't have a word for it, but he likes Star Wars a whole lot, just not on the level that Chris liked Star Wars and this is a completely other topic of conversation.)

As we were placing the new ornaments on the tree, Michael asked me about the ornaments already on the tree. He wanted to know how many I'd left off the tree this year because the tree was not loaded down with ornaments. I admitted that I'd really only excluded Babar from the tree and then I looked at him and asked "I have told you what happened to all our ornaments right?" He said he vaguely remembered, but asked for a refresher. I gave him a brief run down version of how the Grinch disguised as a mean dog with inconsiderate owners destroyed our Christmas ornaments. And they were not just a box of generic ornaments either. These were ornaments that we had collected over the years of our marriage, ornaments that had been from our childhoods, one of a kind irreplaceable ornaments. As I got to the part about how Babar had been turned into colored dust, I felt my throat close up and tears prick my eyes. I was surprised by my reaction to telling this story again, surprised that it still stung after all this time. Michael was appropriately outraged and I shrugged and said "I'm still building back my collection from that time."

We are building back that ornament collection. The Christmas tree is a blending of memories that grows every year. Chris and I managed to gather a small number of ornaments together after the destruction of the old ones. There's an Ecto-1 and a Wall-E on the tree to replace the Enterprise and Yoda. I've added in some new elephants and Chris did find me a new Babar. After a moment of hesitation, I took Babar out of the box and set him on a shelf along with my Abominable Snowman. It just didn't seem right, after all of that, to leave him tucked away in a box. Now Michael and I are adding our own ornaments to the collection. Sure, it's not much now, but give us a few more years and I bet it will be a spectacular collection. 

TRIMMING

I got all crafty and made us a new wreath.

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I've had an ear worm playing in my brain since November twenty eighth. It's that "Trim Up the Tree" song from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I may just be in the mood to trim up a tree with bingle balls. The problem is we lack the space for my vintage sparkly aluminum Christmas tree and I'm nervous about getting out some of my Christmas ornaments. Michael and the Cabbage are not the type that go gently through the night. I am still at times amazed that someone so small can walk so loudly. I just have a vision of some of those ornaments smashed into millions of pieces from wayward limbs and shaking floors. There's a few that are irreplaceable and then I remember that time we went to retrieve our Christmas ornaments from our old house and found all of our ornaments smashed to smithereens. My beautiful Babar ornament was nothing but shiny dust. I've rebuilt my ornament collection since then, even finding the same Babar ornament, but I'm scared of a repeat disaster. Yet I still want to hang some pantookas. 

Last weekend I made us a new wreath for the door. A few days ago, I designed and ordered our Christmas cards. I have yet to hang up our stockings or figure out the tree situation. I'm moving in slow motion mostly because I am indecisive. We can't do live trees if you want me to live through Christmas without suffocating from swollen sinuses and scratching my skin off because of hives. Do I go with the super tiny tree we used last year? Or do I talk myself into a new medium sized tree that would tuck away into a corner a bit easier than the aluminum tree I have now? What about that pre-lit tree Chris and I used one time in the house on Mallard? Does this mean I need more Christmas lights and ribbon? Those Whos have it easy. All of their Christmas shit is strung together so that they just have to toss it up in the air and it lands Christmas side up. If only it were really that easy. 

After looking at trees at Target, I decided that I didn't want to spend fifty bucks on a new tree. This meant that I had to dig in the basement for that pre-lit tree that I knew that I had somewhere because I was raised by Southern women and Southern women always have back-up trees for their back-up trees. I opened the storage box to see that a container of silver glitter had managed to bust open and fill the corners of the box with glitter so when I pulled out the tree and let the limbs flop down, glitter spilled out onto the floor. We have glitter every where. Festive. Once I got the tree together, Michael and I agreed that it was too short and needed to sit on something. So we found a small table (a box) and covered it with a sheet. I plugged in the lights and Viola! Only the bottom half of the tree was lit. I don't know if any of you have a pre-lit Christmas tree or have seen how they kind of work. There's like twenty plugs (really four) and they all plug into each other is some daisy chain (dirty) fashion and all of the plugs are located near the center of the tree. You have to fight your way through plastic limbs to get to everything and I think it's very much like disarming a bomb. One bloody knuckle and a band-aid later I decided that this tree looked fine with just the two strings of LED lights I ended up stringing around the tree.

But the tree is up! We each did several test stomps through the dining room to the kitchen to make sure that the tree would actually stay up and well...it looks like we have a Christmas tree. The Cabbage helped me hang ornaments and she set my Abominable Snowman at the base of the tree. I hung up Babar near the top of the tree and plugged my Christmas trailer into a blue light (blue light special). The Christmas gods have smiled upon us and behold! We have a Christmas tree! Literally decorated with blood and sweat. It's enough to shut up all those Whos because they've stopped singing their holly jolly decorating tune.

Babar

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Even though I still haven't hung the stockings. 

LOVE THURSDAY

Today's entry is about loss and moving on. Many of you remember what happened to our Christmas ornaments a few years ago, but the story is here if you are new to the scene. I think my reaction to the whole destruction was due to a number of things. I had just lost and given up so much that the loss of all of our Christmas ornaments was the straw. It was easier to morn and weep over the loss of the ornaments than it was to morn all the loss and disappointment leading up to that moment in time.

But there comes a time where you have to move forward. You have to pick up the pieces and rebuild or some times you just have to start over. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had been more adamant and forceful in my refusal to move in with Chris's mom. Would we still be living at the old place? What would we be like today? Would it change anything? I know now that the answers to those questions don't even matter; that I don't even care.

Chris and I have been collecting new Christmas ornaments over the last couple of years. Last week, we are able to find a replacement for an ornament that had been lost. And this year there is talk of actually setting up a tree. It may end up looking a little sparse, but that just means there's more room for a little more love.

Happy Love Thursday!