My mom and I butted heads. But never at the Christmas Tree Shops. – The Boston Globe

My mother and I had a contentious relationship. We were always battling about something, even later in life when she was in her ornery 80s and I was old enough to see the daggers — and the triggers — coming. For good or bad, friction was the sticky glue that held us together.

But there were two places where all that fell away, where we curbed our war of words for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoons: the grocery store, where we indulged our sublime love of food, and the Christmas Tree Shops, where we satiated our love of the ridiculous. Whether it was Lynnfield or Somerville (the closest locations to my mom’s home), we’d pull in hot to the lot and grab our carriages, each of us zipping away in opposite directions, relieved to separate.

But something magical happened in those stores. The jam-packed aisles of shiny, priced-right-must-haves transformed us. When we’d eventually bump into each other, we were no longer adversaries, but two giggly gal pals examining the extreme cuteness — and bragging rights bargains — in each other’s carts. We never met a scented candle or a bag of sea-salted popcorn we didn’t like.

It was enchanting to be caught up in a mood where the words “This looks delish!” and “Isn’t this the cutest?” turned our typically salty tongues sugary. When we’d get back to her apartment and unload our treasures, we’d fill her cupboards with jellies and jams, cookies and chips, shampoos and solvents, and then start redecorating, making room here and there for a mini lighthouse votive or a festive spring wreath.

I always saw many mothers and adult daughters at what we called the Tree Shop, bonding similarly. It was an especially perfect place to take an older loved one on a fixed income — they could feel a part of something fun and revel in a cartful of cheerful little bargains. For about $10, my mother once scored a trio of small plates that hung in a row on a metal rack. Written in script on one was LIVE, the next LOVE, the other LAUGH. I would make it a point to shuffle them around and dramatically declare, “But Ma, what if first I want to LOVE and then LAUGH and then LIVE?!’” This amused us both no end. Before I walked out the door, I made sure to put LAUGH first, a subtle reminder to us both to stay in the happy place.

My mother, Helen Grzywa Iudica, passed away in 2017. I miss her the most on Saturdays. I found solace in keeping up my weekly Tree Shop excursions, asking her to point me toward “the good stuff.’’ Inevitably, it would be some item with her initial H for Helen on it, or my D, or my sister’s C for Cindy. I’d laugh to myself and quibble with her in my head. Ma, I don’t need that! But she — and the magic — would always win out.

During my last foray through the Hyannis store in August, days before the last of the Tree Shops in New England tragically closed, I called upon my mother to guide me to my final purchase. “What will it be, Ma?” I whispered. “Do not bring me to the paper plates. I’m all stocked up!”

As I strolled along feeling sad, my eyes suddenly landed on a bin full of jumbled this and thats, and there, placed neatly on top as if positioned by caring hands, were three pristine white kitchen towels emblazoned with the initials H, D, and C. I gasped, scooped them up to my chest and held back tears.

Where will she keep me company on Saturdays now? I wondered, as I paid and took in the place for the last time. The answer came days later, as I mindlessly tossed two bags of sea-salted popcorn into my Market Basket cart. The grocery store, of course.

Doreen Iudica Vigue is a writer on Cape Cod. Send comments to magazine@globe.com. TELL YOUR STORY. Email your 650-word unpublished essay on a relationship to connections@globe.com. Please note: We do not respond to submissions we won’t pursue.