Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Touching tale
Mummy says she’s mostly sending e-cards this year,” five-year-old Florence lisped. Sitting with her granddaughter at the dining table, Jackie looked up from the Christmas card she was about to write. “Really?”
Flo nodded, turning her attention to the cartoon playing on her tablet while Jackie’s thoughts went back to earlier that afternoon when her daughter, Lisa, had dropped Flo off before heading to the dentist.
“Why not do a bit of Christmas shopping afterwards?” she’d suggested.
“No need. I’ve ordered everything online this year. And I’m getting all the food delivered. Honestly Mum, you should try it, you’ll never want to step inside a supermarket again. Besides, there’s no time. I’ve got to get Flo new tap shoes and then on to dancing,” she said, taking a tablet with a pink cover from her bag and handing it to Flo.
Jackie sighed. Lisa always seemed to be chasing time.
Bringing her thoughts back to the task in hand, she began jotting a few lines to her elderly aunt, who lived fifty miles away. As far as she was concerned, a handwritten card was still a joy to send and receive.
After completing half a dozen more she put her pen down.
“Would you like to help me decorate the tree?” she said.
Florence’s eyes widened.
“Yes, please.”
They went into the lounge where a real tree stood in a red pot in front of the bay window. The aroma of pine mingled with cinnamon and orange from a recently-lit candle. On the coffee table were three cardboard boxes.
“Grandad found this box yesterday,” Jackie said to Flo, lifting the dusty lid from one. She took out a ball of crumpled newspaper.
Greg had finally got round to clearing out the garage, stacked floor to ceiling with boxes, tools and paraphernalia accumulated over the forty years of their marriage. He’d discovered it inside a crate marked Beer-making, buried underneath golf clubs and fishing tackle.
Jackie had shaken her head and tried to scold him about all his abandoned hobbies over the years, while smiling broadly at the discovery.
“He had to dust off lots of spiders!” she said, tickling Flo under her arm, making her giggle and squirm. She sat on the sofa and Flo clambered on her lap.
“I thought the box was thrown out by mistake last time we moved,” Jackie said, handing the child a ball of scrunched-up newspaper. “Here, unwrap this one.”
Flo pulled out a red and green glass bauble and Jackie pointed to the looped script printed around the middle, which said Christmas,1981.
“That was the year Mummy was born. Put it anywhere you like on the tree.”
Florence slid off Jackie’s lap and hooked the cotton thread over a branch. She quickly unwrapped more paper. From a frayed gold thread dangled a little felt pixie hugging its knees.
“We bought him in Cornwall when Mummy was about two,” Jackie said. It wasn’t a tree decoration but she’d sewn the thread to the hat to make it into one.
Rummaging through the box, she and Flo agreed that some of the old baubles where the gilt had chipped or the satin split were best left in the box, and Jackie’s newer, colourful ones would be much prettier on the tree.
“Look – one more,” Jackie said, taking the last wrapped piece from the bottom of the box. “Mummy and I made it when she was a little girl.”
Flo gave a little gasp as she opened the paper.
Jackie remembered bending some thin wire into the shape of a star. What fun Lisa had, wrapping tin foil around it.
“Twinkle, twinkle, Christmas star,” Lisa had sung over and over, while dabbing glue and sprinkling on glitter and sequins.
The doorbell chimed, breaking into Jackie’s memories.
“Mummy,” Flo said, excitedly throwing herself at Lisa when Jackie opened the front door. “Come and look
“That was the year MUMMY was BORN. Put the bauble ON THE TREE”
at the tree.” She grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled.
Lisa laughed. “Hold on a sec, let me say hello to Grandma.”
“Hello dear, all OK at the dentist?” “Fine, thanks. Now what’s so special about Grandma’s tree?” she said, allowing Flo to lead her into the lounge. Then she gazed at the tree decorations. “Wow! Where did you find those?”
Flo jigged up and down.
“In a box, Grandad did, in the garage, but the star is best of all,” she shrieked. “The lost star?”
Jackie took the decoration from the box with a flourish.
“Ta da! Remember how much fun you had making it?”
“How could I forget? You sat with me, sticking and gluing. I got in a right old mess with it all.” She ran her fingers across the star’s wrinkled surface, and then put it on the table.
“Can we have it for our tree? Can we, Mummy?”
Jackie’s stomach did a little flip, surprised and delighted at Flo’s request.
“No, darling, this star belongs on Grandma’s tree –”
“Lisa!” Jackie’s heart squeezed. Surely, with all the online this and timesaving that, the magic of Christmas had not completely bypassed her daughter? Lisa gave a wry smile.
“I was about to say… because Flo and Mummy are going to make their own.”
“Yes!” Flo squealed. And then her face fell. “But we don’t have any glue or sparkly bits.”
“Yet,” Lisa said, looking at her watch. “If we’re quick we’ll have time to pop to that toy shop on the retail park.”
Flo gave a twirl and clapped her hands in delight.
“But before we go, I have to do one thing for Grandma,” Lisa said.
Jackie watched, remembering how she lifted Lisa up and helped her wind the star’s wire around the top of the tree. Now she watched Lisa reach up and secure it easily.
“Twinkle, twinkle, Christmas star,” Lisa murmured.
A lump caught in Jackie’s throat. It might sometimes seem that time slipped away, but she knew magical moments like these would be captured forever.