When I first saw the picture of these angels, I loved them immediately. There was something very 1960s about them – naïve and charming and yet slightly creepy. Sort of like Stepford Wives. They looked hand made, the kind of puppets that might just come to life or worse, the kind of puppets that were really people who had been frozen by a wicked witch!
I don’t have an angel on my tree at home and we didn’t have one on our tree when I was growing up. I don’t believe in angels. So then, it occurred to me, that might be hurtful for an angel, coming out of a box, year after year, to see children growing and changing, but not believing in her existence, or recognizing her magic. With the passage of time that angel would know that as those children grew older, they would take control of the tree decorations.
There’s something in that about the inevitable passage of time and the futility of fighting against changing beliefs. What if you were just hopelessly out of date – not relevant any more? And that was where I started when I picked up my pen.