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Luca was entranced. Luca was confused.
It was… so big. In the house? Really? This was a tradition?
The tree took up maybe half of the living room space, and it was awkward to step around. Right now, it stood nearly in the center of the room, though Giulia said they’d be moving it to the corner in front of the bay windows that Luca had forgotten to close the other day.
Since that day, space heaters had been on blast in the apartment and Luca was always wearing a sweater. Today's sweater was one of Signora Maria’s, which fit loosely on him. It had cute red birds—cardinals, Luca remembered—on it, red and brown ones, which, now that Luca thought about it, there were a lot of cardinal themed stuff around the house.
Including one sitting on the table next to the boxes of stuff that were supposedly going to go on the tree.
He’d never heard of such a thing—randomly bringing in whole trees from outside. But, a lot of human stuff confused him.
“Giulia, hand me the box of tinsel.”
He can’t lie though, he was excited.
They were ‘setting up the Christmas tree,’ which sounded simple enough, sure, but then Signora Maria and Giulia started pulling boxes out of the closet and suddenly Luca was confused. What was tinsel? What were ornaments?
Then, when Signora Maria started pulling out meters and meters of what looked like fuzzy, large, shiny string, Luca tapped out mentally.
He had no idea what was going on.
Wasn’t the tree already set up? What is the point of this?
So, Luca stood off to the side, ready to jump in if asked but not about to if not.
“Oh Luca—”
And then he was asked.
Signora Maria continued, “Come here and help me wrap this around the tree, your butt is skinnier than mine.” She laughed at the end there.
“So, why are we bringing a tree into the house again?” Luca asked as he grabbed one end of the tinsel and started walking around the tree in a circle. Signora Maria was right, he could probably do this a lot easier than she could. He was also more agile in general, and Luca had to guess that she also just didn’t want to—or couldn’t easily—get out of her sat down position.
“It’s just a tradition that we do to celebrate Christmas,” Giulia started. Then, she hesitated. “I think…it’s something to do with evergreens symbolizing life? They don’t lose their leaves in autumn like other trees do, hence the name ‘evergreen.’ So, many people see them as a symbol of everlasting life, too.”
Luca nodded, an ‘oh’ silently forming on his lips. It still made no sense to Luca, but he supposed Giulia didn’t really understand it either, and he should just embrace the tradition.
But, he loved questioning things.
“And why tinsel?”
Giulia shrugged at that one. “It just looks nice.”
Not an answer he thought he’d receive, but he supposed it was an answer nonetheless.
Then, Luca was handed the end of a string of lights, to which he repeated his circling around the tree.
“Why lights?”
“Luca, are you going to ask why to everything we put up?” Signora Maria grinned.
Luca’s face turned red. As much as he was certain that she didn’t mind all the questions, he was also sure that it could get a bit much after a while.
“No…” He mumbled, though his quiet nature wasn’t due to him being upset. Rather, he was very, very focused on the lights he was holding. It was always a fascination to him how the lights could just… turn off, and then turn back on. It reminded him of the way fire flickered, and oh how he loved fire.
He waited for Signora Marcovaldo to plug the lights in, but she never did.
“Are we plugging them in?”
Giulia smirked, Luca wasn’t a very discrete person.
“Oh! At the end, Luca,” Signora Maria said.
Luca sighed in disappointment, a bit exaggerated but who was he if not a little exaggerated at times?
Then, Signora Maria reached for another box.
“Alright,” Signora Maria sings, “time for the ornaments, the star of the show! Aside from the actual star.” She chuckled.
There were three boxes left, which Luca guessed all housed ‘ornaments’ of various kinds. Luca waited with bated breath to see what the ornaments were.
And he almost burst out laughing.
The first ornament that Signora Marcovaldo pulled out must have been of sentimental value rather than to look pretty or nice, because it was a small Christmas tree tied to a string with Giulia’s young, young face printed in various shades of brown. She had her hair tied in pig tails and was grinning, with a tooth missing. Her face was smack in the center of the tree, which was also clearly made by a young child—probably Giulia—for it was crudely drawn all over.
Though Luca presumed it looked sort of like what their tree would look like by the end.
The next one was a little bear, with ‘my first Christmas’ written on it. It must be, again, referring to Giulia.
Another came out, a car ornament with “Marcovaldo’s” written on the side. Luca was a bit surprised that Signora Maria has that one, though he supposed she did keep the last name. He wasn’t even sure if they were actually divorced or not, like Franco’s parents had been. When Luca first learned of divorce he had to say he wasn't sure if he had ever heard of anything like it. Seafolk had marriage, sure, but it wasn’t nearly as binding as human marriage was, it seems. If someone wanted to separate, they did, and there wasn’t much fuss about it. That seemed to be what happened with Signor Massimo and Signora Maria, anyway.
A few more sentimental ones came out, ones with years and cartoon characters on them and some with names of people or places that they must have visited.
More generic looking ones began coming out next, a couple plain white, round balls with strings attached that Signora Maria placed randomly, same as the other ornaments. Others were red. Some were gold.
Finally, the last box was opened, containing the weirdest looking ornaments of all.
There were people with wings attached, wearing white robes and with a circle above their head.
Odd.
Another set of ornaments was just… one guy. With a beard and long hair. Also wearing a white robe, but with no wings (except on one ornament) and with a red sash crossing his chest. Luca thought he recognized him from some of the crosses on the wall, which he never really thought to question until now.
Weird.
They hung all the weird looking ornaments on the tree, each one seemingly going in a random spot, though Signora Maria seemed to deliberate for quite a while over where to place it. When she finally found a place for one, she would lean back and smile at the placement, seemingly deeply satisfied with her work.
Then, finally, after all the ornaments (or, most of them. Some of them had broken in the box, to which Signora Maria seemed very sad about, but otherwise moved on quickly) had been put out, there was a fourth final box that Luca hadn’t noticed before.
“Alright, so before we move the tree, I’m going to set up the nativity scene!” Signora Maria grinned and moved behind the tree towards the bay window, where there was a perfect ledge set up. Perfect for what, Luca wasn’t sure.
As she moved over, though, Luca had a few questions for Giulia.
“So what’s with all the people?”
“Oh, those are angels. And Jesus.”
“Jesus? Angels?”
“Right, so…” Giulia shifted in her criss-cross position on the floor. Luca sat down. He wanted to plug in the lights.
“Basically, Christmas is the celebration of this prophet named Jesus, who’s also the son of God. Christmas is the day he was born, so we give gifts—kinda like what we do on birthdays?”
Luca nods. He was following.
“And angels are these beings created by God—well, everything is created by God—and they’re holy and angelic.”
Giulia sounds like she’s half reciting a script.
“And the scene that my mamma is setting up right now is a nativity scene, or it’s the scene in which Jesus was born. It has a baby Jesus, Mother Mary, some sheep and lambs and stuff.” Giulia waves her hand around, almost bored. “And—and the three kings and an angel and—”
“Three kings? What?”
“Oh, yeah. Wow, this is kind of confusing actually. I’ve never had to explain Christmas before…” Giulia seems deep in thought.
Just as she’s about to speak again, Signora Maria comes out from behind the tree.
“I think you’re doing a great job at explaining it, darling.” She clasps her hands together. “I’m going to go get the ingredients for the cookies, we don’t have any anise. I’ll be right back.”
And with that, Signora Maria was putting on her coat and walking out the door, with promises of anise and some flour, probably, mumbled under her breath.
“There’s one more thing about Christmas and God and Jesus…” Giulia started.
Luca leaned in.