My tree is still half-decorated, as I’ve been busy, and not feeling well, and not in the mood. Every time I walk past the dining room, where it lives behind closed doors to protect it from flailing paws and floofing tails of big dogs and small puppies, it chides me for leaving it half-naked in the window.
Who knew plastic pine trees could be so stern?

I walked into the dining room today with the intent to hang more ornaments, and came across a stray strand of tinsel. Now, as I wrote in 2005 (which was, apparently, the first year I officially participated in Holidailies) neither my mother nor I has added tinsel to a tree since 1987, when her brother, my uncle died.

This tree is three years old.

The previous plastic tree was purchased in 2009.

The tree before that, which came with us from California, was purchased in 2002.

None of them has ever been close to a box of tinsel. And yet, I keep finding the odd strand. Not clumps, just a strand or two, caught on an ornament, or shining from within the center of the tree, and I’m confused, because we shouldn’t even have traces of tinsel anymore.

I’ve decided to embrace my 2005 philosophy about them, and, instead of wondering exactly where these silvery strings are coming from, interpret them as fond messages from my uncle, my grandparents, my friend the WarriorPoet.

Sure, the mundane answer is probably just that they’re stuck to the tissue we reuse for years, or have been twined through different ornaments since the dawn of my collection (which began before I began – my oldest ornaments are from my mother’s childhood).

Perhaps after I post this, I will go and put more decorations on the tree.

Perhaps when I do, I’ll find more traces of tinsel.