a storybook town

I live in a storybook town.

Picture a classic Main Street, lined on both sides by decorated storefronts on the ground floor of two- and three-story brick buildings. It’s a bustling area, with local businesses flourishing alongside well known national chains.

The square is actually a roundabout. In the center is a Civil War soldier’s statue atop a tall column, on a lawn with a cannon in each corner. The soldier faces South (of course) looking into the top floor of the historic courthouse across the street.

The community rallied to save the historic theater, which is now a state-of-the-art venue for both movies and live performances. The post office is across from the county archives, and there are five active churches in a five block radius. Church bells peal out the quarter hour regularly during the waking hours.

Yes, I live in a storybook town. This is never more apparent than at this time of the year. Classic street lights line the avenues and sidewalks, decorated with lights and banners. The Christmas tree lighting in the square involves school choirs and town officials. Businesses decorate every corner of their buildings in celebration of the holidays.

One area is called Five Points because of the many roads that intersect there. On one corner is a building that houses a local accounting firm on the second floor, and a bustling Starbucks shop at the street level.

For years, at Christmas time, the building owners have raised letters that are stored laying flat on the rooftop during the rest of the year. Long ago there was a building in nearby Nashville called the Noel (pronounced “no-uhl,” rhyming with Joel) Hotel.

After that business met its demise, the letters were salvaged to be used for a different purpose. When they are raised and lit this time of the year, we pronounce them “no-ell” (rhyming with go tell) and consider them a traditional symbol of this wonderful time of the year.

Strings of streetlights, even stoplights, blink a bright red and green, as the shoppers rush home with their treasures.

Even at this busy time, this sight – seen here through a rainy car windshield on a traffic-filled winter’s night – this sight brings a feeling of peace and good will.

And in the quiet of a Christmas eve night, as we walk away from the last church service at midnight, the sign reminds us of the true gift we celebrate at this time of year. High in the night sky, for all who choose to see, and rejoice.

Merry Christmas!

beauty in the eye of the beholder

Most people don’t want them growing in their yards, but sweet gums are one of my favorite kinds of trees. They grow tall and straight with a traditional triangular shape. They are strong in a storm. Their leaves are star shaped, and in the fall they turn a rainbow of colors, from yellow to crimson to purple. And they aren’t much trouble to take care of as they grow.

So why don’t people want these trees? The problem, they say, is the fruit of the tree. It is actually a seed pod, and it is a small prickly ball that is produced in abundance by sweet gum trees. A large tree can produce enough seed pods to cover the ground beneath it when they fall.

But I love the sweet gum tree for all its good qualities, which in my mind far outweigh the troublesome sweet gum balls. And I have a childhood memory that makes me treasure the possibilities found in those thorny orbs.

I was six or seven years old and during the Christmas holidays that year I came down with a bad cold, strep throat, or some such ailment that caused me to stay home from school for several days. Once I started to feel well enough to do something besides lay on the couch and sleep, my mother devised a craft project to keep me busy for quite some time.

She brought me a sweet gum ball, along with some glue and toothpicks. She squeezed out some glue in a saucer, rolled one end of a toothpick in the glue, and stuck the toothpick on one of the many holes in a sweet gum ball. “Now, we are going to put a toothpick in every hole of this sweet gum ball, and then let it all dry so the toothpicks won’t fall out.”

It took me quite a while to complete the sweet gum ball/toothpick extravaganza, which now looked more like a star. Even when it was all done, it still didn’t look like much, so I asked my mother what it was supposed to be. “Oh, we’re not finished,” she replied. Then she showed me a sack full of sweet gum balls. “We’re going to do the same thing to all these,” she said with a smile. “Oh,” was all I could think of to say.

The star I made looked similar to these.

Since I was sick and didn’t have many other options for activities, I worked (and worked) on transforming those seed pods into stars. I must have made thirty or more. I still wasn’t sure what this was supposed to be, but I persevered patiently and eventually got them all put together.

Then my mother worked her magic – she took a square of styrofoam and made a circle of sweet gum stars to almost cover the surface. Next she added another, smaller layer, followed by another, and another, ending with a single star-shaped sweet gum ball. They all intertwined and connected in a way that I knew would hold them together without any more glue. “It’s a Christmas tree!” I said with a smile of recognition. “Yes, but we’re not finished yet,” my mother explained.

Next she took a can of “snow” – the stuff you could flock a tree with or spray in the corners of window panes to bring winter into our southern landscape – and sprayed the entire tree. She angled it from the top, each side, and even the bottom so that every surface of the pods and toothpicks would be covered. It was beautiful! If you didn’t know what it was made of, it would be hard to make a guess.

“Oh, Mama! Look what we made!” I said. “I love it!”  She smiled and told me how proud she was of me, persevering and working so long on the initial toothpick gluing part. “And we are almost finished,” she said.

“Almost?” I asked as she brought out another bag of supplies. I watched as she pulled out some teeny, tiny red Christmas ornaments. They were less than a half inch in diameter. Mama pulled out the top part of an ornament – the cap that has the loop for the hangar, leaving a miniscule hole in its place. “Now we’re going to glue these onto the ends of the toothpick so they look like ornaments on the tree,” she said.

This part we did together and it really didn’t take long. She had one gold star ornament that we glued at the top of the tree. Last Mama wrapped a red satin ribbon around the edge of the styrofoam block that the tree rested on, and it was finally complete.

I don’t think we have a picture of it anywhere, but when I close my eyes right now I can see that tree. It lasted for several years, wrapped in plastic during the off season and becoming a bit more tilted each Christmas. For years I have thought I would make another one, and who knows, maybe I will one day.

Thank goodness I like sweet gum trees and know the beauty those thorny seed pods hold hidden in their spiky unfriendly appearance.