Memories of the holidays, translated…
When we were younger, my parent would put that Christmas tree up early, so my younger brother and I can get a head start, decorating; and, on Christmas Day, we always found the presents from “Santa Claus”. Although we’re not a Christian family, but, Christmas was the most important holiday for our family aside from the Chinese New Year.
But, as my brother and I got older, because of how busy we’d gotten at school, or maybe, perhaps we’d already figured out the truth about “Santa”, our house stopped putting up the tree. Until my younger brother graduated from the university from away from home and moved back in, did the four of us, start, living under the same roof again.
not my photograph…
That December, my brother and I recalled how our past Christmases had been. What we’d remembered the most was that plastic tree with the yellow light bulbs wrapped around it, as for the presents we’d gotten, we can’t recall a single one of them. My younger brother is a natural-born Romantic, as the memories came back, he’d immediately ordered a Christmas Tree Package, with the tree itself, the decorations, the light bulbs too, even that round-shaped rug underneath the tree, and, after a few working days, it was, delivered to our house.
My younger brother and I opened up the package quickly, and we’d started, “planting” our tree, put the decorations on it, and, awed on how delicate the decorations became; not long thereafter, in our home, which was very cold with the dropping of the weather, has a red and green beautiful Christmas tree, with that warm of a yellow glow to it.
Shortly after Christmas, my younger brother decided to leave home again, to work at a hotel. In this field of work, the holidays are the busiest, because they’re the messengers who bring the “scent” of the holidays to the guests. Every Christmas, my brother who’s busy at work would LINE the photo of the tree at his hotel, and, that Christmas tree we’d ordered online got stored away inside that storage unit, never saw the light of day.
making the memories as a family, NOT my photograph here still..
In the photo my brother sent, the tree looked enormous in the lobby of the hotel, with the European chandelier, very extravagant, and elegant. But, I’d always felt, that that kind of tree never matched up to the tree we’d put together, that’s so cute and warm.
Recently, my younger brother left the hotel where he’d worked, and came back to live at home again. I’d told him, “Hey, why don’t we find a time, to put that old tree together again!”
So, once more, it’s NOT the holidays, it’s the memories assigned to the holidays that made you missed them the most, and, nothing BEATS that very first good memory of that Christmas when you didn’t have that much, but were ALL together as a family, and now, you have the opportunity, to have that again, because your younger brother moved back home…
Life, the Obstacle Course 