AUBURN — Christmas has arrived at Therese Deschenes’ apartment at Schooner Estates.

There is the miniature tree that her sister brought, the musical ornament from her son and the hundreds of paper decorations she cut from the Sunday newspaper sales fliers. 

When Deschenes had a stroke and needed assisted care, she moved into the retirement community. While downsizing from a house to a one-bedroom apartment, her family was faced with what to do with 78 years worth of stuff.

Christmas decorations had to go.

“I’m not dead yet. I’m still around, you know,” Deschenes told her son, Paul Emile Deschenes, when she learned her tree ornaments had been tossed.

The bad news did not keep her down for long.

“(Paul) means well, so I can’t be mad,” she said with a laugh. “I was at one point.”

Rather than sit and complain, Deschenes got to work. “I worked like a man my whole life, and I loved it,” said the former Bates Mill spinner.

Deschenes gathered sales ads from Sunday newspapers and began cutting. “I have big scissors; I have little scissors,” she said. She picked pictures that would appeal to her 8-year-old granddaughter and taped them to the wall where Olivia could admire them. “I stopped when I ran out of Scotch tape,” Deschenes said.

“I love people, and I enjoy life,” she said as she listened to the musical Christmas tree her son gave her.

“I think he had a guilty conscience, so he bought me that,” Deschenes said of the clear-glass tree. “We get into quite a few disputes, but he’s the best kid. I love him to death.”

Deschenes will spend Christmas Day with her son, her daughter-in-law and Olivia at their home in Lewiston.