My mother did the Christmas decorating the day after Thanksgiving. That was way back before "Black Friday" was a thing. NOTHING was open on the Friday after Thanksgiving except maybe the movies.
Anyway, one of my favorite decorations was a star my mother always put up right in the center of the living room entry. It was large-ish...sparkly, or just shiny....and all pink.
It disappeared when we moved to Long Island.
As an adult, I looked around for a star that I could hang somewhere, hoping to find something similar to the one I remembered. I never had any luck.
That is....until MANY years later, after moving to California, then Michigan and then getting divorced after 20 years. I needed to get out of the midwest, I needed to go home. So I moved child, dogs, cats and a fish back to the city. Except this time I couldn't afford Manhattan. My city had changed. I wound up in Queens.
After several years in Astoria, Queens....I had a new beau. And we went Christmas wandering...just looking at what was around, enjoying the "vibe," the lights across the streets, the lights in the stores. A couple of times we wandered into a store. And there they were.....STARS!!
A bit flashier than my mother's, but times change. I had to have one. In fact, I bought two.
I still have the second one in its wrapper. I wonder if my daughter will take it. She has the kind of bohemian taste where she could pull off having the star up all year long.
I don't know...it just makes me feel connected...to my past, to THE past, to what used to be. And for some absolutely incomprehensible reason it makes me happy, even though things with my family didn't turn out that way. It evokes a happier time, when I felt safe.
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