Making Do

Back in 2002, I celebrated the holidays in Lindsay, Oklahoma with my Gramma Francis. It was the last Christmas she would live to see. My sister was there, along with Mom and Dad and the two men who would eventually resign themselves to marrying the troublesome Williams sisters. We scrapped and staked out territory as we each attempted to fashion a down-home Christmas according to our private stockpile of childhood ideals. From the safety of her powder blue recliner, Gramma alternated between the agitation of directing traffic and the blissful calm of watching all her chicks peck around her.

To pretty up the tree, we hauled out the boxes and bubble-wrapped parcels of ornaments from the storage closet. As many of her contemporaries did, my grandmother favored a holiday motif of turquoise and sea-green. We slung the tree with aquamarine garland and blue lights, then dug in vain for the tree topper.

Each of us remembered something different. A silvery glass tower? A twinkling star? A praying angel? Gramma rubbed her head and tried to recall when she had last seen whatever was supposed to be up there. It was Christmas Eve, no one wanted to trudge to the Wal Mart yet again just to buy a cheap plastic tree topper, and did we really need one anyway? Oh, YES WE DID!

So, with tin foil, a cereal box, and several strips of green and blue ribbon, I went to work. Bravely withstanding the derision of my so-called loved ones, I fashioned a workable Christmas star that sat proudly, if a little tilted, atop the tree that year.

After my grandmother passed away, we began the bittersweet process of gutting her closets and puzzling over what to do with dozens of porcelain cherubs and glass perfume atomizers and size-6 dress shoes. Toby and I gathered up an assortment of the Christmas ornaments and carried them home to add a little 1950's flare to our home at the holidays.

Every year since, we have draped our tree with aquamarine and finished the top with that sorry cardboard star. This year, however, it was just too sad. It bent in the middle and flopped over in defeat. "Maybe it's time," Toby said. I sighed. It's hard to advocate for a thing when it won't even stand up for itself.

I've thought about purchasing something glittery and perfect for up there. I really have. But our budget only has room for the kind of ornaments the underpaid Chinese factory workers can't even afford on the wages they earn making them. I'm not sure this is the sentiment I want staring me down from the highest point in my house for the better part of a month. Besides, I'm halfway through Carolyn Chute's The School on Heart's Content Road, and I'm ready for a little grit and dirt on the clean, plastic aspirations of my life.

So. I poked around online. Found a template here for an angel made from a soda bottle. While I don't have any lace or doll's hair on hand, I do have about 150 scarves unearthed from a steamer trunk at Gramma Francis' house. I did a little cutting, a little hot-gluing, a little sewing. A few burns and curses later, I finished our latest handmade tree-topper.

Maybe she's not a perfect angel. But who is?