My husband and I are used to being empty nesters. Our daughters have been living on their own for years, with jobs, partners, plans, and dreams far beyond their childhood universe.
Now we’re empty branchers, too. Along with the cornbread stuffing and apple cake we brought to Thanksgiving, we delivered Emma’s collection of Christmas tree ornaments we’ve been accumulating since before her birth to her and her fiancé.
Emma’s sister Ally got her ornaments in 2019, the first Christmas she lived with her then-boyfriend, now husband. They had a tree higher than the knee-high ones from the supermarket–the criterion for the hand-off. And now so does Emma, so the changeover is complete.
My husband and I thought maybe we’d have to get a knee-high tree ourselves to accommodate our significantly depleted inventory. Luckily, though, I’ve been collecting ornaments since long before I met my husband, long before we had kids. So we did all right, and didn’t even have to dig into the stash of the last-resort ornaments.
I admit it was hard to relinquish one ornament, though–my all-time favorite we got for Emma’s first Christmas.
Emma knew of my attachment, and very thoughtfully said, “I’m not sure I’m ready to have this one yet, though.”
But we both knew it was time. Now my baby in the cradle is in her forever home, just where she belongs:
I love decorating for Christmas, filling the house with greens, red berries, white flowers, and candles. I love hauling out our vast collection of ornaments, decorating the tree (though not stringing the lights), setting up the wooden trains we bought when the girls were little.
I also love dismantling Christmas after the New Year. This time, though, packing away the ornaments came with a dose of poignancy. I separated out all of Emma’s, fully expecting that they will no longer grace our tree, but hers and her partner’s in Christmases to come. After all, that has been the goal of our annual ornament ritual ever since our daughters were born. Just like our children, they are not ours to keep, but to send off into the world created and inhabited by our grown-up kids. (As long as said kids are capable of setting up more than a knee-high tree for their own Christmas traditions).
We’ve done without Ally’s ornaments since 2019, when she and her now-husband began hosting their own tree-trimming parties with a six-footer. Emma and her partner moved in together earlier this year, so I offered to gather her ornaments for the Big Transfer when we saw them at Thanksgiving. I confess to an inner sigh of relief when she declined, since they were going to spend the holidays away from home. But home is where the heart is, and their new home is full of heart. Even in this year of going elsewhere, Emma’s partner set up a miniature Christmas village and tiny tree. After all, he’s father to an 11-year-old and long accustomed to the habits of adulthood. I see a six-footer in their Christmas Future together.
So Emma’s ornaments are now in their own shoe box. As I went through our lists of how each of our ornaments came into the household, I was glad to see that some of the more hideous ones were from Emma’s era of gaudy poor taste (i.e., not mine)—gold-painted reindeer, a plastic peace sign, a plastic speed boat. I will miss, naturally, those selected by my superior taste, before she was too young to have a vote, especially this one, which we got for her first Christmas:
I will miss that little one in a cradle, just as I miss my little girls in their cribs and their belief in Santa and infallible parents. But I am thrilled to see them blossom into their own selves, and to pass on the bounty of Christmases past. I have the comfort of my memories, and knowing that these ornaments will forever be where they belong.
Plus, still with us is the ornament I will never relinquish—this inch-long striped stocking for the in-utero and mysterious Tadpole, more than a gleam in our eyes, but not yet known as the wonderful person to come who brought us into the magical world of parenthood:
The minute I saw the invitation, I knew the jig was up. Our daughter Ally and her boyfriend were throwing a tree-trimming party, a tradition I began with a roommate in my 20s and continued with my husband for many years. This party meant that the occasional knee-high tree grabbed as an afterthought from Mollie Stones would be replaced by a six-footer. It was time.
I’d been waiting for this day with mixed feelings since our daughters were born. Each year, we’d head out the day after Thanksgiving to select ornaments, one for each girl. We’d hang them on the tree, then, after packing them away for the season, I’d write the year and a detailed description of the ornament on hand-scrawled lists: “Ally’s Ornaments,” “Emma’s Ornaments.” All the eras of childhood were there: teddy bears, snowmen, rocking horses, Santas, dogs, cats, the more sophisticated choices of adolescence. Someday, I knew, I’d wistfully wrap them all up and present them as a starter set for the first real tree of their adult lives.
Ally’s first ornaments from us were a teddy bear dressed up for Christmas and a baby on a rocking horse.
I wrapped each one in tissue, along with all the others, and placed everything in a shoe box, wrapping it in extra cloth leftover from the tree skirt I’d made for us years before.
Ally’s jaw dropped as she unwrapped the first ornaments. “I can’t possibly accept these!” she protested, but her reluctance gave way as I assured her this had been my intent all along.
She sent me a picture of their very sparsely decorated tree as soon as they’d set it up, decked with her childhood ornaments and the two they’d gotten for their first tree. There was plenty of room for years and years more.
The tree-trimming party was wonderful. Ally made these adorable edibles:
And here’s what we brought, a homemade facsimile of both girls’ long-time favorite that a friend had given me at my first tree-trimming party almost four decades ago:
