Up On the Housetop
by Dorothy Wilhelm

On the night  before Christmas, I awoke to hear something hitting the roof. Hard.  It was definitely not Santa and his reindeer.  Instead of the prancing and pawing of each little hoof, there was just one big loud repeated thump, alternated with an even louder Ker-Thunk.   I shook my husband awake. “It’s just the angel,” he said, struggling to turn over and go back to sleep.   He was talking about the life size angel I had painstakingly constructed  and hung for display as the high light of our holiday celebration. This was very bad news for me.

This angel was a little over five feet tall, with a six foot wing span.  She was built for flying, not walking.  She was blowing triumphantly on a golden trumpet and she was made of papier mache’. The angel hung between the faux pillars of our faux colonial home in Dayton Ohio that Christmas  and right now she was out there engaged in beating her faux brains out. 

I have to admit that I am addicted to papier mache’ construction.  I have been, ever since the Christmas I was given a volume called The Big Blue Book for Girls.  It purported to contain everything a girl should know. Surprisingly, one of those things was papier mache’ construction, a  popular Depression Era craft. You can make anything out of papier mache’, I learned. You can make jewelry.  Jewelry boxes.  Hors d’oeuvre trays. Fake food to fill the trays. You can even make furniture. But most of all,  you can create art. I was hooked for life by all that can be built from a pile of newspaper strips with  flour and water that will never see the inside of the gravy boat.  When my Number Three Son was was five and fell in love with Oscar the Grouch, I made him his very own set of custom designed garbage cans. When Number Four Son wanted a Noah’s ark, his Dad built the ark while I  papier mache’d him the whole Noah’s family, complete with Mr. and Mrs. Noah, sons, wives and babies.

And then, that  long ago Christmas,  I had my great inspiration.  I been stuck  indoors with the four kids all winter as usual. I was pregnant, as usual, when I saw the picture of a renaissance angel and visualized a spectacular Christmas display, built by my own hands,  that would have the whole neighborhood talking. It certainly did. 

From September until December, most of the dining room was covered with a plastic tarp. The floor had newspaper permanently glued to it.  The children hung over the baby gate I’d put at the door, surviving on peanut butter sandwiches and begging me to come out.  The angel was finished in time for Christmas. She was splendid hanging from a brass ring in the middle of her back with her six foot wingspan and her jubilant trumpet.  Until the  wind started to blow.  The space between the faux pillars made a perfect wind tunnel and my angel was truly airborne. She bounced up. She gyrated down.   There was no stopping her. We all piled into our winter coats and trailed outside to watch her go.  The children were ecstatic at this unexpected retribution for the months of neglect and the neighbors were appreciative of the entertainment. I was aghast. Each time she swung around, she whammed her triumphant trumpet into the roof.  It hung at a dejected angle.

And the roof didn’t look so good, either.

We’ve all had craft projects that didn’t work out as expected and I’ve learned restrict myself to smaller projects.  When my children were married, I tenderly sculpted each of them charming little papier mache’ portrait figures of themselves, which they all seem to have misplaced   Still, I love the idea of making something from absolutely nothing - unless  you count a floor refinishing and a touch of roof repair.

I’ve learned my lesson. Anything can be over done.  And yet, lately  I’ve been thinking  that maybe a papier mache’ angel - a small one -  would look great hanging between the pillars on my front porch. I wonder what  my Resident Home Owners  Association rules say about that.