A is for Advent: A Three-Year-Old's Perspective

E is for Embellish

Stars are important, and a Christmas tree without one isn't a Christmas tree at all.

The Christmas tree at home has been naked all day, but it isn't the lack of decorations or lights on its silver tinsel branches that vexes Timmy.

It's the lack of a star.

Mum tells him they will all do the decorating together that night, after dinner. Timmy allows the plan without complaint, but that doesn't stop him from looking at the non-star. The empty space where a star isn't.

By lunchtime, the issue is quite out of his mind. Then Mum takes him to the furniture department of Harvey Norman to get a photo of him and his brother, with Santa. 

Timmy knows they're here to see Santa, but all he sees are couches. Lots of couches. And past them, more couches. Mum weaves through them, along narrow carpeted walkways, and Timmy sees there are numbers too. The numbers are on labels attached to the couches. Some of them are on pieces of paper, slotted into steel stands.

Mum stops at the end of a queue, and Timmy examines the numbers on the stand closest to him. Mum puts a squirming Daniel down.

"Is a three!" Timmy says, moving his finger along a string of numbers. "An' a four! An' a nine an' a nine." He moves his finger back to the beginning. "Tha's a S, Mummy, ay?"

"It's a dollar," Mum says.

"That says dollar, ay?" Timmy corrects. "Not S, ay?"

Mum murmurs an agreement, but she's looking wide-eyed at Daniel's dirty feet clambering onto the leather couch with all the numbers next to it—the three and the four and the nine and the nine—and looking rather sick.

She lunges for Daniel and plants the squirming child back on her hip. They all move forward as the queue shortens, and Mum calls Timmy to leave the sign and come.

Moments later, couches and numbers are forgotten, and it isn't the sight of the old man in garish red, seated next to a painted fireplace, that gets Timmy's attention. Nor is it the giant inflatable snowman—although that diverts him a short time while he pushes at it.

Every tree in the festively decorated corner has a star at the top.

"Look, Mummy, is star!" he says, excited, ignoring Santa and pointing to one of the trees. "A star!"

"Yes, I see it," Mum says. She's not even looking. She's holding Daniel on her hip and trying to pull the grasping tentacle that is his arm away from a tinsel archway framing the grotto's entrance.

When it's his turn to be photographed, Timmy needs coaxing away from the decorated trees to sit on the old man's lap. When Santa gives him a lolly he is happy to comply, though he still looks at the star more than at the camera.

At home, the lack of star is more obvious to him now. And thus, more offensive. When the decorations finally come out, Timmy rips the lid off the box and forages for a moment. He lifts the large silver treetop star and waves it at Mum. "This one? This one, Mummy? This one?"

"That goes on last," says Mum. "Put the other ones on first. The star will wait for the end."

Timmy is the fastest of everyone decorating the tree. He works faster than Daniel can undo his efforts. When there's only one thing left to do, Mum looks at Timmy. 

Timmy is staring at the star. Dad is holding it in his hands now, in front of Timmy, framing the moment.

"Oooooh!" Timmy says. He can't manage anything more eloquent, and in his excitement he jumps up and down.

Dad smiles at Timmy's exuberance and places the star on the tree, winding the top branch around the star's base to secure it.

"It's finished!" he announces to Timmy, and stands back.

Timmy is still jumping, and still grinning. He looks at the tree, and at its star.

Now it's a Christmas tree.