by AnnMarie McGovern-Theriault

Created on: February 21, 2009

When I was seventeen I married for the first time. It was fall and I was expecting a baby. I was very excited about spending the holidays with my new husband. We were very young. Together we struggled through the months and soon, the holiday season started to approach.

We didn't have a lot of money, barely enough to buy presents. I can remember sewing our Christmas stockings and making a very small one with a question mark, anticipating the baby I would have in a few months.

My husband was very busy, taking on all the new responsibilities of being a husband and father. He worked many hours as a store detective at a local department store while waiting to become a police officer. When Christmas got closer, and though I constantly reminded him, he kept putting off buying a Christmas tree. He told me the longer we waited the better deal he would get on one.

When Christmas Eve finally arrived I was getting pretty impatient. I wanted a tree. He had to work that day of course but promised to bring a tree home at the end of the day. We didn't have a car so he had to depend on friends to give him a ride.

He arrived at our apartment that night, with the saddest tree you could ever imagine. He paid 2 dollars for it. It barely had branches. I was still very determined to dress up this little tree. My Mother had been collecting ornaments for me over the years, and my Aunt had made some and sent them to me from California. I had quite a few. They were so beautifully misplaced on this poor tree. When we were finished decorating it with all the garland and all, we realized we didn't have a star for the top of the tree. My husband then drew out and stapled together a star big enough to adorn our tree top. I colored it with a bright yellow crayon.

That star was a big part of our tree for 12 years. It was amazing how it held up. It held up better than the marriage that had created two beautiful sons. Despite it all, that husband and I remain special friends having created those two little lives together.

The years have past 33 since that first Christmas. I am remarried now with a new little girl. We have many beautiful things to decorate our Christmas tree. But each year in the ornament box, I find that star. Over the years that star has become more magnificent with meaning. It reminds me of all that I have to be thankful for, and of where I came from.

Out of respect of my new husband I leave it in the box. But, I never forget that it is there.

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