The Christmas Box

I'm STILL working on getting my Christmas decorating done. It has proven to be a much slower process than expected, and truly, than it really ought to be. In the process of decking the halls, I have found interruptions hampering the completion of the task at hand come from the usual daily aspects of life, errands, night shifts, and even, at times, lethargy. It is coming along though.

I think I have procrastinated some in getting the job done because I knew that, this year, I was going to retire a big old cardboard box that has stored ornaments and a couple of other random Christmas decorations over the years. I really hate to to retire it (READ: trash it), but I didn't realize the extent of my attachment to that old box until this evening as I was taking out the ornament boxes that have so neatly fit inside that box while waiting patiently to be opened up each year in anticipation of so many Christmas celebrations. I transferred the individual ornament boxes into new clear plastic containers that would keep the contents more protected, but that box...that box was more than just a storage container for out of season ornaments. It was (is, for the moment) also a repository for memories.

It holds memories of its past life hearkening back to the days when we were pretty broke, and our Christmas decorations could fit into a single box that also happened to be shared with random household goods from our linen closet, back when it was originally commissioned into service. In the course of time and many military moves, the box eventually came to be an "ornaments only" box, and it's contents safely traveled with us to new homes in new places that would be transformed into "home" for the Christmas holidays we spent there, anchoring our past with the present through the bits and pieces of our lives and happy memories of Christmases past that the ornaments in the box symbolized. It has symbolized the growing up of our children and the passing of pets who were loved and so much a part of our family too.

Emptying out that box in anticipation of its retirement proved to be a more emotionally difficult thing for me to do than I had expected. It was difficult enough that I had to stop and take photos and write about it before I could break it down. That task still awaits. Retiring the box - breaking it down, and hauling it out to the garage to await the next trash collection day isn't just about retiring an old, but in some ways, perhaps still serviceable box. No. For me, it is closing a chapter in my life. The Christmas box that followed us around for my husband's whole military career, and was with us for each Christmas as our children grew and as some have left home, has been a sort of friend and fixture who was always there, faithful, maybe taken for granted at times. I'm going to miss that box and the part of my life that will, in a sense, go away with the box. The memories, however... the memories I get to keep.