Oskar, the Christmas Tree Elf: A Christmas to Remember

Chapter 5: The Magic Begins

The crates that had been brought down from the attic were all stacked along the walls of the living room. The sun had begun to set and snow was falling heavily outside, but Grandpa had lit a fire so the room felt warm and cozy. Emma and Luke inspected the boxes, peering in each one to see what new wonders it contained. Sue began sorting through the boxes and handed Grandma one that was filled with pinecones covered in gold glitter.

"Emma," said Grandma, "do you want to help me hang these beautiful pinecones on the garland?"

Emma took a pinecone from Grandma and examined it closely. It sparkled as though covered with silvery white snow and was bigger than any pinecone she'd ever seen. Grandma demonstrated how to hang them on the pine garlands they had draped along the woodwork of the room. Then she began taking the rest of the pinecones, each carefully wrapped in tissue paper, out of the box. One after another, she looked them over briefly then handed it to Emma. As Emma worked diligently, hooking them onto the garland every foot or so, Grandma recollected the history of the ornaments.

"Your great grandmother Dorothy and I made these when I was your age, Emma. She collected these large pinecones while she and Papa were travelling through the Sierra Nevada mountains early one spring in 1932. They had come to California to buy some special seedlings that Papa wanted to add to his stock of trees, but before they reached their destination she spotted these giant pinecones on the roadside, still covered with the residue of the winter's snow.

"My mother had never seen such huge pinecones! She filled the bed of the old pickup truck with as many as she could find, leaving little room for Papa's seedlings. She had no idea what to do with them and they sat in the attic for over 20 years. It was only while we were snowed in one Christmas that she brought the pinecones down from the attic, and she and I spent a week painting snow and glitter on their tips, making them shine and sparkle just as they did when she first discovered them."

Emma hooked the last pinecone to the garland and shouted out, recalling Grandma back to the present. "Grandma, I'm finished! Doesn't it look so pretty?"

Grandma admitted that it did and together they admired their handiwork. With its soft pine needles, prickly holly leaves, red berries, and huge glittering pinecones, the garland was thick and rich in color, and it filled the room with the smells of cinnamon and evergreen. Emma was delighted to see the room decorated with this abundance of nature that brought the sights and smells of the season together like a rich Christmas stew. She hoped that Oskar was as pleased as she was.

While Grandma and Emma were hanging the pinecones, Grandpa and Luke decorated the tree with the wooden cranberries. Luke uncoiled the cranberries from their crate and handed them to Grandpa, who draped the continuous strand of berries across the tips of the stronger branches as the tree rotated slowly in front of him. He began by draping the bottom branches first, then slowly worked his way upwards, climbing the scaffolding in the window bay until he reached the top.

Then, at the bottom of the box, Luke found a metal tin that contained a carefully wrapped figurine of fine German porcelain. It was an elf, closely resembling Oskar, holding in his hand a short string of cranberries attached to a heavy needle and thread. Luke handed it to Grandpa, who hung it near the top of the tree, connecting the string of berries in its hand to the end of the cranberry garland. Once the display was completed, it looked as though the entire string of cranberries had been woven together by the little elf.

Grandpa called Emma over to admire the garland of cranberries that wrapped around the tree. She gasped when she saw how realistic the decorations were. When she spotted the elf at the top of the tree, her first thought was that it was Oskar himself, helping her family prepare his tree for Christmas. What's more, the cranberries were so exquisite that Emma could almost taste the tart bite of the fruit just by looking at them. Each wooden bead was one-of-a-kind, sanded smooth by hand and painted in rich shades of red with the occasional hint of brown. She was tempted to pluck one off the tree and plop it in her mouth.

Once the empty crates had been moved into the hallway, Grandma asked Luke to help her in the kitchen while Grandpa organized Sue, Brad and Emma to assist him in putting the ornaments onto the tree. Sitting on the planks designed to fit into the great bay window to make tree decorating easier, Grandpa and Emma began to hook ornaments onto the branches of the slowly revolving tree. Emma searched carefully for the perfect place to put each beautiful ornament, and as soon as she safely fixed one in a suitable spot Sue or Brad would unpack another from the crates and hand it to her gently.

To Grandpa and Sue, to Brad, and even to Emma, unwrapping ornaments felt like seeing old friends again. "What treasures," said Grandpa, looking closely at each ornament before securing it carefully on the tree, "each one with a story of its own." Then, as Emma inspected the lovely blown glass ornament in her hand, it slipped from her fingers. In an instant it was gone. It burst on the floor in a delicate explosion of glass.

"Oh no!" cried Emma.

"Don't worry, Sweetheart," said Grandpa as he helped her down from the scaffolding. Tears filled her eyes. "These things happen. Papa Andrew taught us to accept that sometimes ornaments break. They're as fragile as life itself. Enjoy them while you have them and let them go when they're gone."

While Grandpa consoled Emma, Sue brought out a hand broom and dust pan to sweep the shattered glass from the floor. "Papa Andrew had a special tin for broken ornaments," Grandpa explained. "He would crush the remaining fragments into a shiny dust, and then glue the dust onto new ornaments that he had made by hand. That way, an ornament would never be lost, just changed in form."

Grandpa sat down near the tree and set Emma in his lap. She looked up at his face with sad eyes. "Remember, Emma, even Christmas trees are destroyed at the end of Christmas. This old tree that we cut down today is still healthy and strong and beautiful, but within a few weeks its pines will be dry and its branches will be brittle. Then we'll take down the tree and it will be mulched and returned to the earth to feed future generations of Christmas trees. That way, the spirit of this tree will continue to be felt for many Christmases to come.

"How'd you like to make that broken ornament into something new while you're still here?" asked Grandpa. Emma's face lit up, but mostly because Grandpa's story made her think of her tiny friend. "I'll bet that between the two of us, we can make something just as good as the original."

They added the last few ornaments to fill in the gaps that they had been unable to reach. After only an hour's worth of teamwork, the tree was now richly adorned with ornaments of every shape and color imaginable.

"Are we going to put the tinsel on now?" asked Emma.

Sue and Brad smiled at their daughter's enthusiasm. "We can do that after we eat," replied Grandpa. "Right now, let's get these crates back up to the attic and then get dressed for dinner."

As soon as she finished dressing, Emma rushedback down to the living room and began searching the branches of the tree.Finding nothing, she sat down in front of the revolving stand and its twolevels of train tracks. Emma knelt in closely and watched the trains steadilychugging along, looking for a sign of any conductors or passengers. A shorttime later, Emma's parents and Grandpa joined her in the room. Brad knelt downbeside her and they enjoyed the trains together.