We’re having Christmas at home for just the two of us, this year. And like last year I have the entire week off while my husband has to work for most of the week, so I drove down to Mom’s yesterday to drop off her presents and take her to lunch. I also dropped off presents for one of my sisters, my nieces, my grandniece, an aunt, and a friend that all live in the same town. So there was lots of chatting. It was nice to spend some time with everyone.

There is some new drama going on with some of the family, and I got to tangentially experience a teeny bit of it, but mostly it was just a wonderful day. The drive down was a dream, so it only took about two hours to get there. The drive home was not quite as good. The rain was so bad that for a couple of stretched visibility was severely reduced, and there was a few points that between the wind and the rain it was a bit of a challenge to keep the car in it’s lane. Still, it only took about 3 hours to drive home, so it was still a lot better than a couple of the really awful trips have been.

My aunt didn’t have a tree up. Usually she has a big tree with all blue ornaments, but she decided last year that it was silly to decorate just for herself, so she gave away the artificial tree, all of her lights, and all of her ornaments. And she says she’s been regretting it all month. So her current plan is to buy a new, much smaller artificial tree and some lights and ornaments (particularly if she can find them in after Christmas sales) for next year.

Mom did something similar a couple years ago, although her story was a bit different. My Great-grandma had a small artificial tree which she bought in 1957 or so, and she set it up and decorated it every year until she died in 1975. Then her tree went into storage at Grandma’s for several years. Until some point in the 80s, when my mom was preparing for her first Christmas after getting divorced from my step-dad, and she happened to mention to Grandma that she wasn’t certain she had to time, energy, or money to set up a tree that year. So Grandma showed up at Mom’s house with Great-grandma’s tree. Mom used that tree every year until it literally fell apart while Mom was taking it down four years ago.

Mom was in the process of getting rid of a lot of things and preparing to move to the small town where my sister and several other relatives live at the time. The first place she moved to there was much, much smaller than her previous place, and she decided she didn’t have room for a tree. Then she moved to her current place which is a bit bigger, but she told me that fall, when we were discussing holiday plans, that she hadn’t liked any of the artificial trees she’d found in stores because all the ones in the size she wanted had built-in lights, and that was a no-starter. So I could her to talk about what she wanted, and as she described it, I searched on-line until I found a tree that met all of her specifications. It wasn’t until after I had ordered it that I told her what I had done, and that her tree would arrive later that week.

She had ornaments. She has some that belonged to Great-grandma, and a few that belonged to Grandma, but also a bunch that were made by her own grandkids (my nieces). She says she’s very happy with it. When we were there on Thanksgiving, she had us help her set it up and decorate it. One of her favorite decorations, a blue glittery garland with white snowflakes (which I think had been Grandma’s), was falling apart badly and she was pretty sad about it.

So while I and the youngest niece were hanging ornaments and Michael was sitting with his broken leg propped up, he secretly searched online until he found an identical garland and ordered it for Mom. It showed up a few days later and she sent me excited texts with multiple pictures of it.

If you haven’t figured out by now what a soppy sentimental person I am, you haven’t been paying attention. For example, back in the early 90s, a co-worker came to me one December with an unusual gift. The co-worker’s name was Noreen, and she had been born and raised in Hawaii. She had been named after her Great-aunt Noriko. And Great-aunt Noriko had owned this very silly plastic Santa brooch or pin. Great-aunt Noriko, she told me, had worn it every Sunday in Advent leading up to Christmas, and would wear it to any holiday parties or get-togethers. Noreen had inherited the pin along with other things when her Great-aunt died, but unlike her aunt, Noreen was Buddhist and didn’t observe Christmas. She said she always felt guilty for not wearing the pin at Christmas time; whereas, I wear jingle bell earrings, Santa hats, and other silly Christmas things during December all the time. So it had occurred to her that I might be willing to wear Great-aunt Noriko’s pin.

I told her I would be honored to, and I meant it. I said as soon as I’d seen the pin, I had been flabbergasted because it was identical to one my one Great-grandmother (the same one whose tree my Mom wound up using for many years) had owned, but I never knew what had happened to it. So I said that of course I would wear Great-aunt Noriko’s pin at Christmas time, and tell people about Great-aunt Noriko who loved Christmas and Santa and so on.

Which is when Noreen told me of the Hawaiian tradition of referring to everyone who is approximately your own age as cousin, and any one who is older as either auntie or uncle as a sign of respect, but also a sign of the Hawaiian belief that all people are one big family. Which of course, we are. So she gave me the pin and told me that I should consider myself Great-aunt Noriko’s honorary nephew. So, for over thirty years I have, every Christmas season, worn Great-aunt Noriko’s pin, in honor of her, and my Great-grandma, and my former co-worker.

Merry Christmas, cousin!