Much to the chagrin of my live tree loving friends, who have made it a delightful and much loved part of the Christmas tradition, I cringe at the thought of the millions of oxygen producing, CO2 consuming, squirrel housing trees being killed, and burned a few weeks later (generating even more C02) in the name of Christmas. I am therefore a dedicated plastic tree girl, and while I know plastic is far from environmental, I just can't kill a perfectly good tree. I am hoping decades of reuse minimalize the carbon footprint. In putting up my tree today, I realized it actually bears more similarity to another historical item. The totem pole.
The totem pole is an Indigenous or First Nations tradition of carving symbols or figures in a large tree. They figures served as characters, or events, in the story it tells. The secret of the story lies in the observer's knowledge and connection to the meaning of the figures and how they are placed.
This is my totem pole, in all its plastic glory. I think it's a thing of beauty.
And those who know me will know the meaning in my totem. They will look at the ornaments and know some of the histories. Above, a singing dancing moose sits below the tree, a reminder of the days when a certain young boy in our family wanted to be a moose farmer when he grew up. The little leprechaun below says luck of the Irish, not sure how lucky he is since he is hanging from a tree, but he was a gift from Siobhan (fellow Bermuda explorer) to my parents when she visited Canada on her way back to Ireland. Next to him is a little guitar, if he gets bored, a treasure from my Edmonton days when I was a poor student and used to scour placed like Canadian Tire for inexpensive glittery gems like this, which I still love many years later.
In another section of the tree, Bermuda is featured with the banana leaf doll, the little bear from my sister's Beanie Baby collecting days, the mailbox from my mom's Canada Post career, the white crocheted ornaments from a Saskatchewan Christmas fair, and a little kitten wrecking a tree in honor of the life size event that happened every Christmas with Lexi and JJ. The drum and crystal presents were found on more budget foraging days in Alberta.
This Dalmatian Beanie Baby has a penguin and bear friend that were gifts to me one year, picked by my niece and nephew and purchased by my sister...they remind me of the 101 times 101 Dalmations and Happy Feet were played on the VCR or DVD player. All I am missing is a Balto.
This little bear says 2001, and he is actually a key chain, a treasured Christmas gift from my niece Jaycena that she purchased with money scammed from Grandma. It travels with me in remembrance of her.
In this corner, we have ornaments in memory of Jaycena, who always made Cbristmas so much fun.
There are actually 2 banana leaf dolls on the tree....I fell in love with them and got one for my mom and one for me. We have a merged tree this year since I am here.
All families have their Christmas tradition. Ours is the movie "A Christmas Story," with little Ralphie and the Red Rider BB gun. Here he hangs from the tree in all the glory of the pink bunny suit his aunt made him. If you push a button it plays of sound clip of his father calling him "a pink nightmare!"
And of course there is a leg lamp -- "it's a major award!!!" Sitting next to it on the left is a hand painted ornament from when I was a blood bank tech, a gift from a work friend. There is a pewter kitten nearby as well.
Atop our tree is a very special star. The original stays with her mom, but my sister scanned and printed replicas for the rest of us. The Christmas star Jaycena made as a little girl. The opposite side has a sad face just in case the mood changes, but, nothing else will ever sit atop my tree :)
Gifts, memories, treasured artifacts of my past. This is my totem.
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