Six years! Now I will tell you a tale of woe and subsequent adjustment. When I was married, our Christmas tree was covered with homemade ornaments from my ex's aunt. So when it was time to set up my own tree, I started from scratch. So I went to (where else) Target and bought a bucket of those satin string colored balls, and a bunch of plastic snowflakes. Add a couple of things Mr W made at school and there were the ornaments for the tree. It bugged me at the time, and seemed to be some kind of symbol of what I had lost after getting divorced.
But as time has gone on, and I've perused the after-Christmas sales for quirky ornaments, and have received some ornaments as gifts, I'm good. The one I got from the estate sale across the street, with the red dot, fits right in. I've got a few more ornaments than I put on the tree, and there's just a few plastic snowflakes and satin balls on there now. The tree, bought 3-4 years ago at the Goodwill store, goes up in a flash, I've got the right amount of lights, and the process now gives me satisfaction instead of being a reminder of something lost. As it should be.
In a Christmas ornament related train of thought, we'll be celebrating Christmas at my sister's family's house this year. If you're not familiar with the story, my sister died in 2008 at age 45 of stage 4 colon cancer that was simply detected too late. You can look at the label "Sister Kris" if you want to read more about that. She wasn't a nun, just one of several people of that name we were keeping track of.
Anyway, after my mom died, Kris got all our family ornaments. Now that Kris is gone, they're part of her family's traditions. Still, I'm hoping I can talk to my BIL and see if he'd be OK with me taking a couple. There's on in particular that hung on my mom's family's tree when she was growing up. Not much to look at, but so very sentimental. And along those same lines, my dad called me the other day, and said he's moving to Florida. My initial reaction was "'bout time!" since he's talked about it for years. But he's a little nervous about getting everything either packed up or sold off, naturally. He mentioned that he'd be bringing over some of my mom's old little statues and figurines that he kept but is ready to part with. We'll see how that goes.
My initial plan was to have us just use carry-ons. Hmm. Still undecided. Anyway, it looks like there will be some shuffling of family objects. It's all good.
Finally, here's something I thought my nephews (20 and 22) might like? Maybe...
I know we keep being told that it's not the material "things" in our lives that are important, but some of them sure do have a lot of memories and sentimentality attached to them, don't they?
ReplyDeleteP.S. Those hoodies are REALLY cool!
Yes. When it gets down to it, the list of really important stuff is hopefully pretty small.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to have to get the hoodies. I told Mr W about them and he said, "well, I might like one". Sheesh.
I used to send a friend an interesting Christmas ornament every year for his tree. It was a very fun tradition for both of us. Unfortunately, he is no long with us - and I often wonder what happened to those ornaments. I think ornaments hold such great memories from past Christmases - hope you get the ones you love.
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