Getting Ready to Move

We gave away boxes & boxes of Christmas decorations
there were so many in storage
that it had become impossible to keep any real account of

So much of it she had kept in the hope that one of us kids
would want to carry them on in our own traditions
but as for me
I'd always believed that she had kept them for herself

They were stacked there though

all of them
with X-MAS written in marker on the side
& not from under the twinkling lights
but the glaring daylight from the open garage door
we looked at each one & wondered
why we had them in the first place
who had liked this or that way back when
did it have any significance at all

Under scrutiny
many looked cheap, ragged or just silly
despite having been staples on our tree
for as long as I could remember

We separated them
some for the Goodwill
some for the trash
some to keep

Strangely
the ones we threw away were mostly handmade
from some cousin or aunt
Shells glued & glittered
little toy soldiers or teddy bears affixed at the center
like a Venus De Milo
conceived by a moron

We kept the ones with dates
or ones that referred back to some significant timeframe
The Army, college, career choices & changes, births
& death in those that reminded us of our departed

It was easier than I’d thought it would’ve been
there were no tears
no misty eyes even
no wistful recalling of days gone by
neither debate nor despair
we packed it up
with a couple of other things
old computer monitors & keyboards

Goodwill took all the decorations
boxes of them
without question
but they said the computers
couldn’t be taken without an accompanying CPU
and had to be no more than 5 years old