Ornaments
I stared at the collection of delicate ornaments carefully packaged in the box on the coffee table, and I started thinking it was a bad idea for Rusty to invite me over to help him decorate his Christmas tree. When I was growing up, our tree was covered in homemade snowmen and silver tinsel and candy canes that never lasted all the way until Christmas morning. These ornaments, though, with all of their intricacies and hand painted designs, were so beautiful I was afraid to even touch them.
The tree already looked beautiful, rich and green, with twinkling white lights lace through its branches, but it couldn’t compare to Rusty. You could see by looking at him that he loved Christmas; his cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes bright and wistful. The candles placed throughout the room shadowed and shone on his skin, his black hair glowing from the light of the fireplace.
He kneeled on the floor, reaching for my hand, pulling me to the ground next to him. He took the first ornament from the box, a star made of thin, blown glass, the tips of each point tinted with red. "This was one of my mom’s favorites," he explained. "She used to hold it up to the light before hanging it on the tree. The reflections would scatter and dance all around the room, and she loved it. She would just smile this contented, dreamy smile…"
As he hung the star on a branch, his lips curled as he pictured it in his head, I knew exactly what he meant. I was seeing it before my very eyes. "Beautiful," I whispered, though he didn’t realize I wasn’t referring to the ornament.
He picked another from the box, this one ceramic-a wreath of red holly berries with green leaves, a delicate ribbon draping around it. He laughed softly, holding it up so that I could see. "When my sister was really young, she thought this was mistletoe. Whenever I would pull it from the box, she’d crawl up on my lap and give me a kiss on the cheek…"
Before he could hang the ornament, I slipped a hand around his wrist, lifting it above our heads. His smile widened and his cheeks flushed a darker shade of pink. I pressed my lips lightly to his, nuzzling his nose for a moment before pulling away so he could put the decoration on the tree.
One by one, he others in the box took up residence on the branches. There was the clear glass globe that his parents bought for his first Christmas, with a snowy wonderland hand painted on it, along with his name in swirling script. He had a snowflake of clear crystal, so tiny and fragile that I thought I would break it if I breathed too hard. Each one had a story, a history, a memory attached to it.
When he held up an engraved ornament, with an ornate representation of the nativity scene, his eyes started tearing up. "It was my grandmother’s," he said, his voice catching in his throat. "When I was little, she always let me hang it, even though I was clumsy and everyone else said that I was sure to break it…" his words trailed off and his hands trembled slightly as he hung the ornament. I slipped an arm around him, squeezing gently as he took a deep, shaky breath before finishing the story. "When she died, everyone decided that I should get it, because they knew how much it meant to me."
We finished decorating the tree, which consisted mostly of him telling me more stories about his parents, his sister, his friends back in the Czech Republic while I silently hung ornaments. Soon the branches were fringed with tiny, delicate decorations, all except for the very top. Rusty pulled a beautiful star from a separate box. It reflected rainbows all around the room, the light glittering and reflecting on the facets of crystal. He carefully placed it at the top of the tree, and I smiled at the beauty of the finished product.
It was perfect.
"Finished," I murmured, slipping my hand into Rusty’s, entwining our fingers.
He smiled bashfully and stared at the ground, "Not quite…" he said quietly, shuffling nervously. "You see…the best part of this is the fact that there are so many memories. Every single year of my life is represented in these ornaments. So, I needed to add one to represent this year…" He pulled his hand from mine, picking up a box that I’d barely even noticed.
"Remember last year, when I was so upset that my parents couldn’t come to see me during the holidays? And even though you DID have family in town, you still came over to make me feel better."
"Right. Better," I laughed softly. "We spent hours playing in the snow, and we ended up fighting the flu for the next week."
He fidgeted with the lid of the box, biting his lip. "I know…but, even though we weren’t really ‘together’ then, it just made everything feel so much better. It made the holidays worthwhile. And...well...I've been falling more and more in love with you every day since then, so...I figured for this year..." his voice trailed off as he lifted the lid, revealing a small, intricate, hand painted snowman, made of shining, glistening crystal.
I traced a finger lightly over it, giggling quietly, "Our snowman wasn't this good..." I captured the cord between two fingers, slowly lifting it from the box. I carefully hung it on an empty branch, then whispered, "...but I think this one is perfect."
His eyes shone and sparkled, his smile brighter than any Christmas lights, and I kissed him deeply, taking satisfaction in his soft gasp of pleasure, in the way his hands clenched at my shoulders. "Merry Christmas, Rostislav," I whispered.
He smiled again, then murmured against my lips, "Merry Christmas, Rick."
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