Decorating the Christmas tree is not a speedy task. At least not for me. My husband is always willing to lend a hand, but to be honest, it’s a journey that cannot be rushed. Last year, we spent the entire holiday season with my recently widowed mother-in-law, so the unveiling of each precious ornament took longer than normal this year. Slow doesn’t begin to describe it.
As I was hanging each memory with care, I wondered what my Christmas tree trimming preference says about me—psychologically. I’m kind of a geek when it comes to understanding personality traits, which isn’t a bad thing for a fiction writer and former middle school teacher. I own Type Talk, by Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen; Please Understand Me, by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates; Please Understand Me II, by David Kiersey; Discovering Your Personality Type, by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson; and The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective, by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert. Why, you might wonder, do I need so many references to the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs personality types. Did I mention that I’m a personality-trait geek?
This exercise in overthinking expanded beyond my own little world as I wondered what this seemingly simple yearly task says about other individuals. Did you ever stop to consider what your Christmas tree trimming style says about you? It could be more complicated than you think. I’m drawn to the look of a color-coordinated tree with a theme to match. I love organization and color. Put the two together and I’m in my happy place. However, I’m too sentimental (and frugal) to actually decorate my tree that way. Unwrapping and hanging ornaments is an opportunity to take a walk down memory lane.
It was no different last week as I oohed and ahhed over the ornaments my kids’ piano teacher made for them each year with a picture of them sitting at the piano. It was a gift to time-travel back to the hours I sat through their lessons, seeing them grow week by precious week. I teared up when I unwrapped a little Bichon Frisé which brought to mind my own who passed away eighteen months ago. There are ornaments bought as souvenirs on trips my husband and I took and ornaments I made for a 4-H craft fair twenty-five years ago. I even have an ornament given to me in 1977 (with the year on it) by a family friend when I was in high school.
So even though I love the look of those perfectly coiffed Christmas trees with shiny, matching bulbs, I treasure the opportunity to relive my family history. The older I get, the more precious that history becomes. Nostalgia is definitely alive and well during the Christmas season in my heart and in my home, and my Christmas tree is a testament to it.
What about you? If you have young children, your tree might be an advertisement for tinsel and candy canes (I know that was true when my kids were young.) Do you think your tree-decorating style is consistent with your personality? Maybe you’re a traditionalist and you follow the style of your parents. Or, maybe you’re not even into trimming a Christmas tree. That, too, could be consistent with your personality. Give it some thought and get back to me. I’d love to know if I’m onto something here.
It just might be an idea for a non-fiction book. If nothing else, it would be an original perspective of testing one’s personality.
Comments 3
I used to take time to unwrap each ornament and place it just so on our tree, when our children were little. They wanted to help, of course, and they did…under my watchful eye..lol. I am sure..in fact, I know, this caused them so stress and I usually ended up doing it myself.
Now that I have grandchildren, they love to come to Grandma’s and help decorate the house…tree, villages, bookshelves, and I LOVE it! I just let them go to it and it is so fun to see how creative they are…plus, we are all more relaxed and enjoy the “trimming”.
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Sounds like the perfect Christmas decorating team! I envy you. Thank you so much for sharing, Barbara. I pray your Christmas is blessed.
I remember one year I was about 10 or 11 years old, so you would have been about 7 or 8 years old. Dad put the lights on the tree and all of us kids were decorating the tree. Mom and Dad left us to go to the store. We got all the ornaments on it so all that was left was the tinsel. We started putting it on one strand at at a time, but soon got bored and started throwing the tinsel at the tree particularly at the top where none of us could reach. When Mom and Das got home they were greeted with a mess.