Photo courtesy of SID CEASER PHOTOGRAPHY Shown is writer and humorist Teresa Santoski.

The Christmas decorations you recall from your childhood tend to influence how you decorate for the holiday as an adult. Your immediate family usually has the greatest impact, determining, for example, whether you buy a real tree or an artificial one.

But sometimes, you develop a fondness for certain Christmas decorations because of the influence of your extended family. Which explains why I’m the only one of my siblings who has wholeheartedly embraced what I call “Plastic Christmas.”

When Oldest Younger Brother and I were growing up, every holiday season we would travel to Scranton, PA with our parents to visit our relatives. To this day, I have never encountered so much festive plastic in one residential area.

Porches were festooned with strings of bright colored lights, and front yards boasted light-up plastic Santas, snowmen and manger scenes. And no front stoop was considered fully decorated without a three-foot-tall plastic candle standing on either side of the door. To my young eyes, it was truly a magical sight.

Keep in mind, too, that this was some time ago, so these weren’t like the inflatable decorations that you see today. These were made of hard plastic; they didn’t deflate and fold up for easy storage. Buying these decorations meant you were committed to Plastic Christmas.

The celebration of plastic continued indoors. I recall a veritable greenhouse of plastic flora – mistletoe balls, holly sprigs, wreaths, and evergreen boughs, complete with pinecones. There was even a bowl of plastic fruit on the kitchen table, looking so realistic that Oldest Younger Brother and I had to be warned not to eat it.

Once I became a teenager and started earning money at a part-time job, I made a few attempts to recreate the Plastic Christmas I had adored as a child. My biggest coup came when Oldest Younger Brother and I pooled our funds to buy a light-up plastic manger scene, just like the ones we had seen in Scranton.

The scene consisted of the core participants in the first Christmas: Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. We had hoped to include wise men and camels, but they had to be purchased separately.

They also weren’t readily available. We drove into Massachusetts to a store that had wise men in stock, only to discover that we couldn’t afford them. It just goes to show that a wise man is hard to find. When you do find one, he’s worth his weight in gold.

Mom graciously allowed us to set up the manger scene in the front yard, but she wasn’t as thrilled about the two-dozen large plastic candy canes we hung from the trees. They only got to stay up because Baby Youngest Brother and Baby Younger Sister thought they were pretty.

Mom grew up on a farm, which made for a very different Christmas decorating experience. Rather than heading out to the store to stock up on artificial greenery, they grew their own Christmas trees and cut their own ivy, holly and evergreen boughs and garlands.

Everything was completely natural and homegrown. No Plastic Christmas there, with the exception of a mistletoe ball and a lovely dish of high-quality plastic fruit on the kitchen table.

My siblings and I never got to experience Christmas on the farm – by the time we came on the scene, our grandparents had downsized to an apartment in a historic converted schoolhouse. And since they came to visit us for Christmas and New Year’s, we never saw how they decorated for the holidays.

Until we were going through some of my grandparents’ Christmas decorations earlier this year and I opened a box and discovered – Plastic Christmas!

Apparently, once they lost their access to free farm-fresh greenery, Grandma and Grandpa had decided to invest in decorations they could reuse year after year. Buying real trees and wreaths and garlands adds up over time.

There were plastic holly sprigs, small evergreen boughs with pinecones and – joy of joys – small wreaths bedecked with plastic fruit. I am now at an age where there is less danger of me mistaking plastic fruit for real fruit, so I can use it for decorative purposes without needing to be reminded that it’s inedible.

It helps that I probably wouldn’t put a wreath filled with real lemons and blackberries on top of my TV.

This year, my living space is a joyful celebration of all things Plastic Christmas. In addition to the aforementioned plastic greenery, I have five artificial tabletop trees, Christmas coverings on said tabletops, four small artificial poinsettias, balsam pillows, hanging ornaments and a partridge and a pear tree.

I’m not joking about that last one. I also inherited a set of partridge and pear ornaments from my grandparents. Perhaps we’ll find the remaining eleven days of Christmas as we continue to sort through their decorations.

As the daylight hours get shorter and shorter leading up to the winter solstice, I feel like I’m spending most of my days in the dark. This year especially, I crave color. I crave light.

More than anything, I want to be reminded that Jesus, the light of the world, is right here with us, helping us and loving us, even when everything seems dark and cold.

Even if, you know, He happens to be represented as part of a light-up plastic manger set.

May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be filled with decorations – plastic or otherwise – that bring you comfort and joy.

Tete-a-tete is published monthly. Teresa Santoski can be reached at tsantoski@gmail.com or via www.teresasantoski.com.

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