About fifteen years ago I bought my mom a Christmas ornament at the post office.
It was one of the ornaments from the White House Historical Association. They have an annual series of ornaments, which depict the White House and its Christmas traditions through the ages, usually (but not last year, 2025) through the life of the occupants of the White House in a given term. There was a stack of the ornaments on the counter when I was buying stamps or mailing a package. While I don’t remember which ornament in the series it was — it may have been the McKinley ornament, or it could have just as easily been the TR ornament — I knew it was something my mom would like.
And she did. She loved the ornament, and over the years she’d buy the ornament or I’d buy the ornament, and as sales and money allowed we’d try to backfill the ornaments and plug in gaps. We’d talk about the ornaments on the phone. She bought the Jimmy Carter ornament immediately. I bought one ornament at a Washington Nationals game, it might’ve been the Eisenhower ornament, but don’t quote me of that.
She had a special tree, dedicated just to these ornaments. There was a 19th Amendment “Votes for Women” ornament I bought for her at the Smithsonian when I was there for a day of World War I programming to mark the 100th-anniversary of the end of the war, and that ornament may have been on the White House tree, too.
When I was in Lynchburg in October and November — my dad was in the hospital twice with heart issues, and he had a doctor’s appointment — she had a flyer from the White House Historical Association, and she wanted my thoughts on which ornaments she didn’t have that she should get — “Do I get Harrison, or do I get the first Cleveland, or do I get the second Cleveland?” I think was the basic question — and she had them circled on the flyer, complete with her annotations. I don’t know that she ever settled on one; I quite liked the first Cleveland ornament. She was trying to decide for when they went on sale after Christmas, so she would be ready to order.
An email arrived from the White House Historical Association a little bit ago: Complete Your Ornament Collection With These Great Deals!
She won’t be completing her collection.
The email choked me up. I had been routinely marking the WHHA emails read without actually reading them or looking at them. I had been thinking about unsubscribing from the newsletter altogether. This one I looked at, and it hit me hard.
Grief is not linear, and it emerges from unexpected places, like the recent episode of the BBC’s Soul Music on Coldplay’s “Yellow.” (The story at the beginning of the program, about playing music at the bedside of an unconscious person, hit close to home, and I had to pause the podcast for a few minutes to get myself back together.)
She loved her White House ornaments. She was proud of them, she was proud of having them, she showed them off, and she was excited by them.
I will miss her tree.
