I love my Christmas Tree!! Many years ago when my husband and I were celebrating our first Christmases, we didn’t have much for the Christmas tree. We bought some ornaments from a neighbor kid for a school sales drive. We bought bright and shiny hanging balls and tinsel. We bought a unique ornament here and there, which of course would be horribly expensive if you bought enough in one season to fill up the tree. I’d have to say for the first several years of our marriage, our Christmas trees just had a manufactured feel. Memories of purchasing ornaments from K-mart just don’t warm the heart.
After my Grandmother passed away, I inherited all of her numerous ornaments which I LOVE!!! Most of them are handmade. The woman could sew. There are angels and stockings and snowflakes and Santas; all the typical ornaments you would think of for Christmas. I also have mice, geese, trains, drums, teddy bears and little wreaths. I recognized and remembered the felt angel I had made as a Camp Fire Girl with sequins and nylon material for the styrofoam head. And there are really unique ones, such as Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow, Raggedy Ann & Andy, items you wouldn’t associate with Christmas but they are adorable. I even have a Batman ornament and Robin ornament. There are so many – enough to fill up the whole tree.
As a youngster, my mom would always cook popcorn on the stovetop. Does anyone remember the labor that went into quickly moving the pot back and forth over the burner as the popcorn popped so it wouldn’t burn in the layer of oil? My mother gave my brother and me a needle and thread so we could make long strings of popcorn for the Christmas tree. I’m sure we ate more than we put on the string but it was great fun. We also made chains with links made out of cut up strips of colored construction paper. Cook that popcorn with your children, and link those links!
Since we have had our two boys, they have added to the collection. They made ornaments in school and at home. I still have a Kirby ornament made out of pipe cleaners, er um, chenelle sticks (they loved the Kirby Airride video game at the time). Yes they made paper chains. There are styrofoam balls they glued sequins and shiny glitter to, with unfolded paper clips as hangers. There is an ice cream cone with a glued on ball. There are simple ornaments that are paper cutouts that they drew on with crayons. They may not be the most artistic but since they are from my boys, they are the best and I hang them with pride!
So when the Christmas tree goes up, and I start hanging the ornaments, I am flooded with memories. My Grandmother made this with me as a little girl, here are the ones my sons made when they were young, and yes, my best friend bought this as a present for my first son and my first Christmas as a mother. Now the tree is not just a Christmas Tree, it is a Memory Tree, truly a Family Tree, full of history, each ornament with its own story. Make those ornaments, keep them, remember them, hang them, relive the memories and retell the stories.
