The Christmas Tree

Why were there only face ornaments on the Christmas Tree? Why the angel face on top?

Contest Prompt

"Chapter One" Write a first chapter about this picture of a family tree with pictures of people on it.'

It was a strange way to decorate a Christmas tree. Each hand crafted ornament held a picture of a face on it. Stars, moons, comets, and suns reflected a universe of look-alike people.

“Who’s that?” Curtis was just old enough to understand Santa Claus but no image of him was around. Even the angel on top of the tree had a half familiar looking face on it.

“This is our family tree, honey,” his mother, Sandra, said. “These are pictures of our ancestors. There’s you, me, Daddy, and our Grandpa’s and Grandma’s.”

“But who’s that?” Curtis figured anyone wearing wings who was resting on top of everybody else, had to be someone important.

“That’s our guardian angel watching over us. I’m sure she’s related somewhere back along our line, but it’s been too long. I’ll have to look her up.”

“Why’s she a guardian angel? What do they guard?” Curtis couldn’t let go of the subject. At five years of age, almost every sentence had a ‘why’ in it.

“The family story is that she was an orphan, left alone to live on the streets. When she grew up, she never wanted her family to feel lost and alone like she’d been. She told them how much she loved them, they were the jewels in her heavenly crown. When it was her time to go to heaven, she’d ask if she could be our guardian angel instead.” It was all coming back to Sandra. She made it a point to tell the story every Christmas night in the years to come.

“But what does guard mean?” Curtis had the mental picture of their guard dog, so called, because he barked at anyone coming up to knock on their door.

All the guardian angel stories about how one family member or another had been saved from something came to Sandra’s mind. She’d been raised on them. “I’ll share one guardian angel story each night until Christmas comes. Then I’ll share my own.”

She tucked Curtis into her arms and gave him a hug. “Some day you’ll have our guardian angel help you out of a mess. That’s when you’ll know for sure, what guard means. Until then, each story I tell you will give you a hint about what it means.”

“Come to bed and I’ll begin.”

Curtis couldn’t wait for the stories to start. Having his own angel who could fly on top of trees was pretty darn neat.

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