Wed, Dec 21st - 9:50PM

Two Special Christmas Trees

I saw a very magnificent Christmas tree in l945.  It was a scruff of a tree, not very tall, probably only a foot high.  But it was a delight to my senses.   

We had just escaped from Poland prior to the Russian takeover of the country in l944.  After having lost everything, even my baby brother I needed something to cheer me up. 

My aunt Martha got this little scruff of a tree and decorated it with unravelled bits of yarn that she pulled apart so thin that when they were dropped onto the tree they looked like milkweed fluff, or like snow flakes.  She rolled little bits of paper into cylinders to look like candles. Those she also added.  She also stuck pictures of missing and absent family members into the branches of the tree. 

After all the trauma I had lived through in the preceeding year, this was a bit of heaven.

I saw another magnificent Christmas tree in l951.  After much hardship we finally arrived in the United States. 

I sharply sucked in my breath and exhaled a big Ohhh!  The tree was from floor to ceiling and it was alive.   It sparkled with tiny glass candles that had bubbling, multi-colored fountains inside of them.  They were called bubble-lights.  They reflected their magnificent colors onto the tinsel so that it reflected a multitude of colors.

http://www.wordsfromagarden.blogspot.com