Parting Shot: Baring all about the Teddy bear tree

As a child, I threw myself into the process and, methodically, made sure every branch looked like it was ready for a department store window.

Tinsel was evenly distributed. Lights tested the bounds of extensions cords. Ornaments were wired to branches so even our cat couldn’t pull them off.

The result was breathtaking – for a 9-year-old.

My parents were more than willing to cede the job because it meant they didn’t have to do it.

“Can we have the same kind of tree they had on ‘Days of Our Lives’?” I asked one year. And since that meant they didn’t have to lick light bulbs to make sure they worked, they went along with the idea. With each family member’s name written on balls, I had, in essence, what the Hortons had every year. The family gathered to hang the ornaments and remember poor Sister Marie or dead Bill and flashback on the year of trials and tribulations. The episode usually sucked up two days of the holiday week and gave Macdonald Carey plenty of time to read the Christmas story and toast the living offspring. Inspired.

My tree was, too. Since there were only four of us, I added the names of the Hortons and hung them with the same mix of emotion and remorse that Alice Horton always displayed.

The attention to authenticity was lost on my family – and everyone else. So I was forced to look for a different theme in subsequent years. Usually, it involved a color, yards of ribbon and the best tree $25 could buy.

“Theme” trees were better received when the base had long needles. Garland hung better, too, and lights could be arranged so they looked like they had grown from the branches.

I went through years of twinkle lights, liquid bubble lights and chaser lights. I had a rotating color wheel during the height of aluminum trees and spotlights during the natural “green” years.

I scoured stores for perfectly wired ribbon. I spent days making bows worthy of Neiman-Marcus. And, yes, I always made sure the wrapping paper was color-coordinated.

Favorite ornaments were never part of my tradition because, frankly, they interfered with the look I was trying to achieve.

When I was 12, I hit upon an idea that I thought could change the face of our family tree: homemade ornaments. Not a collection of homemade ornaments but one -- Teddy bears – repeated all over the tree. The bear couldn’t look like any other. It had to be an original. And it had to be made of the right material. But what?

I scoured fabric stores for three months and finally found the perfect one – a brown Dotted Swiss. I found coordinating ribbon, too, and bought enough of it to make a prom dress for a plus-sized girl.

Because Teddy bears weren’t exactly a holiday staple (and Martha Stewart was not around to push the improbable Christmas theme), I decided I had to create my own.

I drew all sorts of bears, thought about adding buttons for eyes and tried to figure out how those bears would finally be hung. (The answer? By a ribbon around their necks.) Once I made the perfect bear pattern, the “elves” (named mom and dad) were pressed into service, much to their dismay.

Mom fired up the sewing machine and helped me turn out a forest full of bears. Dad stuffed each one with cotton balls while keeping one eye on the football game. When the pack was complete, I insisted we flock the tree so the bears would look just right. Oddly, they agreed and watched as I pulled together my vision. One by one, the bears found their places in our tree. The lights were just right. The effect (while not exactly Christian-based) was remarkable.

Mom liked it. Dad did, too, but thought candy canes might make a nice addition.

No, I insisted. It was the bears and the bears alone.

The next year, mom wanted to repeat the concept, perhaps afraid of the workload I envisioned.

No, I said. We’re going in another direction. Someday the bears will come back. Not now.

Candy canes got their due in another year and, suspiciously, many disappeared before they were hung on the tree.

Eventually, I tired of tree-trimming and mom took over, adhering to a more traditional approach. She had trees with ornaments that looked like everyone else’s and a helter-skelter approach to attaching them.

After she died, I found a small bin filled with the pieces that had been on her last tabletop tree.

Next to it was a box. Inside: 24 Dotted Swiss bears, lovingly preserved. A photograph showed how they looked on the year’s Norwegian Pine.

On the back, a note in my mom’s handwriting. “Here’s how they should look,” it said. And then, six words that led me to believe I might have to revive an old tradition: “This was our best tree ever.”