The big ugly cardboard box sat in the center of the living room. Bits of Christmas paper, delicate glass ornaments, strings of colored Christmas tree lights, gold and silver strands of tinsel leaked onto the carpet. A faded, tattered paper rose was brushed aside in the rush to get to the ornaments. It was the same delightful and glorious mess that sets our house in motion year after year to get ready to enjoy another glorious Christmas season. I found the rose and picked it up. It was made many years ago, when we were spending our first Christmas in Cali, Colombia where we were to live for two years.
We all stood around the box as my husband untied the rope that held it closed. Finally, the knot came untied and he stepped back to allow the family to close in. The children squealed excitedly upon seeing the old familiar Christmas decorations. There was a rush to uncover the favorites; the angel whose wings were getting droopy, the gilded bird’s nest, the stockings with each child’s name embroidered on them, still pretty, but with evidence of quite a few Christmases past. We hung the stockings on the stair railing since there was no fireplace. I suddenly became aware of our little Colombian maid watching all the excitement with great interest. She looked as though she longed to join in the frenzy. I invited her to come closer and to touch the ornaments if she liked. She fingered them with awe. We explained to her that we save them from year to year and that each brought back beautiful memories of friends, holidays, family and Christmases in other places.
“What do you do at your house, Lelia?” Peggy asked. Peggy was our eight-year-old.
“At my home, my sisters and I, and my mother make paper flowers. We use many to decorate our houses and our church.” She spoke with pride as she talked. I almost felt ashamed of our many beautiful decorations. She continued, “Several weeks before La Navidad, we buy paper, tissue paper at the papelaria and after our work is done, we gather around the table and make the flowers. Oh, they are so beautiful, and we have so many colors, that is, if my father has had work. If he hasn’t, then we can only get a little paper, usually white.” She looked at the bare tree standing in the corner as though wistfully remembering. She would not be going home this Christmas. It was to be her first away from home. “Tell us some more, Lelia,” Jan begged. She was our oldest daughter, almost eleven.
The girls were beginning to decorate the little tree. It was typical of the trees used in Cali, Colombia for Christmas. There were few firs and no cedar trees for sale, but most families used bare branches which had been brought down from the mountain sides by the Indians after first stripping them. The branches made a ghostly appearance in their nakedness. At first our children despaired without a real tree, but when they saw some trees already decorated in their Colombian friends’ homes, they saw how beautiful they could be.
Lelia continues, “If any of my relatives go to the city, we get them to buy red and green crepe paper so we can make red roses with green stems. They are the prettiest of all, and when everyone takes their flowers to the cathedral, oh, it is so beautiful. Her eyes shone as the memory came back to her. Walter, who was four asked, “What else do you do? Does Santa Claus come? Do you get lots of presents?”
“No, he does not come high up in the mountains, but we have much fun during the season. We dance and we sing. We have many trinkets. We kill a chicken and my mother makes sanchocho”. She smiled and continued, “And we always have many fireworks. Aye, it is fun!”
Lelia was only fifteen years old and had been working for us for six months. She seemed like one of the family now, and we were very fond of her. Often, I felt that she was almost like a teenaged daughter. She would come into the children’s rooms and sit and talk with them, all of them giggling together. She was fascinated with their toys and particularly the one that had curly hair, a Shirley Temple doll. Lelia could not read or write and the girls used to show her their books and read her stories. Lelia’s favorite member of our family was Diana, our baby. She was always ready to pick her up, feed her, play with her, comb her hair. She made Lelia’s life tolerant in the city. Diana was her plaything. She never let her cry and looked askance at me if I did.
We knew she came from a very poor family and had grown up in the mountains somewhere in central Colombia. She was a Mestiza, part Indian and Negro and was quite pretty. She told us of her many brothers and sisters still at home. Naturally, we gave her all the outgrown clothing from the children and also the discarded toys. This delighted her, and her eyes would sparkle over even the smallest gift.
That warm December day we continued decorating the tree, and finally hung the last decoration. I was pleased with it. The children were ecstatic. It was such fun! Lelia had disappeared, and we began the business of picking up our mess. Finally, the room was in order again. We put up the Nativity scene and added some small candles which we lit to see how the effect was. Then we arranged the miniature orchestra nearby. The girls set up the angel chimes that rotate from the heat of four candles. The scene was complete. My husband opened the small Bible to the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 1 verse 18) which tells the story of the birth of the Christ child. Over this scene on the wall, he tacked up our old Nativity Calendar and Walter got to open the first little window. Since we had forgotten to get it out by December 1st, the children opened several more until they got to the right date. We remembered how excited Walter had been the Christmas before when he opened up the 24th window and there would be the baby Jesus.
I carried the empty box back to its place in the cupboard and heard Lelia singing someplace else in the house. I was glad she was so happy. When I came back into the room, I saw that the mail had come, bringing a whole stack of cards from overseas. I knew at last it was going to be an American Christmas though with a tropical setting. I asked Jan to find the Christmas records and put one on the record player, and as the children played around the tree, we began to read the first cards of the season.
Suddenly, I was aware that Lelia had come back into the room. She quietly walked over to the tree and hung a red paper rose on one of the branches. The room was very quiet, and she turned to us and said, “I hope you will always remember me when you decorate your tree in la Natividad in los Estados Unidos.” I thought to myself that this rose, made by her in her room while we had been hanging our decorations, is a symbol of love, for us and for the Christ child…. She looked so happy at that moment, as though with such joy in her heart from this simple act of giving. “Oh Lelia, how lovely of you,” I tried to say in Spanish.
Many years later, I still remember Lelia on Christmas. Now the children are growing, little Diana is ten, but when I get out the box, and we come to the little paper flower, somewhat faded and a bit tattered after all these years, I’ll say to whatever family member is at home, “Do you remember where this paper rose came from?” And, another story of Christmas will unfold and be renewed in all our memories.
Aunt Deanie, visiting from Texas, entertains Diana and Walter.