Crash, crash, crash! Two weeks before Christmas, my son shatters an ornament with three jabs of a mini hockey stick. I spend the afternoon combing through the carpet for shards of glass and vacuuming until a satisfying array of lines replaces the mess. The hand-painted ornament was a favorite—a souvenir from the San Diego Zoo—and each year when we placed it on the tree, I recalled a day laughing at orangutans, trying on silly hats, and waving to pandas. The pieces clink together like a sad little champagne toast when I pour them into the trash.

Our tree is not color-coordinated; it won’t make you oooh and ahhh or think you are in the entrance of a fancy department store. There are no strands of pearls or perfectly placed ribbon tendrils dancing down the branches. On our tree, there are koalas from Australia, a vermilion torii gate from Kyoto, bride and groom snowmen, and three Baby’s First Christmas baubles. Pipe cleaner candy canes and salt dough handprints cozy up with basketballs and ballerinas. Yellowstone Moose, Mickey Mouse, and Ninja Turtles rub elbows while helicopters hover. Like the zoo ornament lost to preschooler mayhem, each item on our tree tells a story.

I admire polished trees dripping in delicious velvet ribbons, shiny bulbs, and elegant baubles. But I will champion charming and cheerful boughs, and I will delight in the scrappy, ragamuffin spirit of our tree each year. Every branch is a reflection of our home and our lives: the loud and the soft, simple and intricate, handmade and holy all holding hands. Even the highest branches are no longer out of reach, and I worry about which ornaments we might lose next. But I also know each time we trim the tree, we will tell this story of the mini hockey stick, the crash, crash, crash! And for each broken bulb we will add ten more to our tree full of stories.

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