700 Tiny White Lights And A Sad Surprise

A couple of Christmases ago, my husband bought for me the Christmas Tree of my dreams: almost eight feet tall, white, perfectly shaped and with seven hundred tiny, little, white lights. I always wanted a tree like this and I loved how beautiful it looked with all the sparkling Holiday ornaments.

There were in my Christmas past, times when my sons and I had no money for a tree and so I hung lights from the ceiling and filled an old chest with presents from my family and fixed little roasted hens I bought with food stamps. We laughed and thought how creative we were and how pretty the Section 8 apartment looked with the couch we found in the alley all covered with glitter and ribbons and friends laughing and singing. So I know all the commercial goodies are not a necessity when it comes to celebrating the love of each other on Christmas.

But ...

Late in the afternoon, on Sunday, we discovered a sad surprise, someone had broken into our storage area and had stolen the tree and all the ornaments and of course the hundreds of tiny white lights.

I guess whoever took all the storage contents must have been very desperate. I wonder if they knew all the memories connected with the ornaments collected, hand made and gifted from people who love us? Maybe the thieves needed the light, needed the memories, needed the love - if so I hope our treasures found new homes and that the people who stole the "dreamy white tree" will find a little hope in the seven hundred white lights to bring about much needed changes in their lives.

When this happened, I thought about the people who lost everything in Katrina, and the Sunami, and so many other natural disasters; compared to their tragedy, our loss is such a little one. But it made me stop and remember to be more appreciative and grateful and careful of those special possessions in our lives which show us the history of the memories we share.

I am not sure what we will do come this next Christmas - maybe donate some trees along with presents - maybe keep our light from within that can never be stolen but always shared- maybe learn a new way to build a treasure chest of Holiday memories. Since this is only February, I guess I have some more time to think about all this and who knows maybe the "dreamy white tree" and all the other treasures will be returned to us in a special way.