Lucy’s Dollywood Christmas ornament
Dumplin'Lucy’s Dollywood Christmas ornament is a souvenir of a journey Lucy longed to make but could not bring herself to take. In Lucy’s room, Willowdean finds it in a red velvet box: a white iridescent globe circled by puckered red lips, with Dolly Parton’s signature in gold. Its decorative brightness holds a more difficult memory—the Dollywood trip that ended at the airport before it began.
Appearance and Provenance
The ornament came from Dollywood, a place Lucy had always wanted to visit. Mrs. Dryver brought it home for Lucy after the planned trip fell apart. The ornament hangs from a red velvet ribbon rather than a metal hook, a detail Willowdean takes as evidence that it was expensive. Its vivid colors and carefully described surface make it more than a generic keepsake: the souvenir preserves a specific destination and a friendship organized around a shared dream.
The Journey That Did Not Happen
Mrs. Dryver had won a set of airline tickets at work and immediately offered the second ticket to Lucy. They planned the trip together, looking at hotels and rental cars, and drove three hours to the closest airport. There they learned that Lucy would have to purchase an additional seat on the plane because she would not fit in one. The airline was kind but firm; mortified, Lucy chose to go home rather than take up two seats. The ornament therefore marks a sharp contrast between the anticipation of a trip carefully planned and the practical barrier that stopped it.
What the Keepsake Preserves
Willowdean finds the ornament while alone in Lucy’s room, drawn there by boredom. She takes it with an old pageant registration form and spends the afternoon studying the form. The objects bring separate unrealized possibilities into the same moment: Lucy’s abandoned journey and the pageant Willowdean is beginning to consider. The ornament does not erase the humiliation attached to the airport; it keeps the memory tangible, carrying Lucy’s wish and the limits imposed on her into Willowdean’s present.
