But..Where’s the Tinsel?
Our Christmas tree went up yesterday. My husband found a “Sounds of the Season” channel on television, put it on for me, and went to the bedroom to hide out until the deed was complete. The end result is beautiful. But.. where’s the tinsel? 🙂
For me, decorating the tree really is a slow stroll down memory lane. My tree doesn’t have a bunch of beautiful ornaments that look exactly the same. My tree doesn’t have a theme..unless that theme is “life”.
If the kids brought us a homemade ornament from school, I saved it and that ornament has a spot in the tree. I laugh as I hang those ornaments, because there are several from certain kids, and only one (or none) from others. Perhaps there were more that never quite made the trip home from school. Perhaps the homemade ornaments went to the other parent (we are a blended family) because that parent didn’t see the kids on a daily basis like we did, and that’s fine.
There is the ornament with the nerdy guy from the Office Space movie. When the button in front is pushed, he mumbles phrases like “I’m going to burn this place down”. My son Barrett got this for me several years back, when my place of employment kept moving my cubicle until I was near the back of the building. I told my son I was beginning to feel like this character, and he bought me the perfect ornament.
When the kids were all living in the house, I bought an ornament from a craft fair. On this ornament are tiny mittens with the name of each family member on them. These mittens are actually hang on little hooks. After years of accidentally losing a mitten and freaking out until I found them, I finally got smart and hot glued them on. Now they SHOULD stay in place.
My set of ceramic gingerbread ornaments have been on my tree for twenty five years. Until this year, I also had some cinnamon applesauce ornaments that the kids made in pre-school. This year when I pulled them out, they had a nice little layer of green moldy stuff on them. Our house has been so humid lately, so I had to say goodbye. If you would like the recipe to make these ornaments I also use it to make Valentine hearts), you can find it here:
https://cookiesandcursewords.com/cinnamon-applesauce-hearts
I have ornaments that were gifted to me by co-workers through the years, and each one elicits a memory of a particular time in my life.
Hanging near the bottom of the tree is the ornament sent to me from another Air Force mom the first year that Clay was in the military. Those first few months were rough on this old momma, and that ornament brought a smile to my face.
What is Missing?
For some reason, I have no ornaments on my tree from my departed parents or my sister. Those would make my tree complete.
One other thing that doesn’t hang on my tree is the laughing stock in today’s Christmas world..tinsel. As a child, the decorations were not complete until the tinsel was placed. Some chose to slather tinsel on in big globs, and others (like me) chose to carefully place the tinsel one strand at a time.
My older sister Jan always hated the tinsel, but I liked it. I liked the shimmery strands that reflected the lights. I did not like the static electricity that guided the tinsel to stick itself on my butt..only to be discovered hours later!
Does anyone still use tinsel? If you do, more power to you. It is pretty. It is shiny. I know if my mother were still alive there would be tinsel on her tree.
After all, isn’t Christmas supposed to be pretty and shiny?
