Christmas Treasures

I hate certain parts of  Christmas decorating.  For the last week, I’ve had the “stick” part of my artificial Christmas tree sitting in my living room. Yep, just an empty stick. Yes, I use an artificial tree.  The last time I had a real tree, my cat tried to climb it every day. I picked it up 5 times. . . and sat with a squirt bottle every second of the day. He’s not nearly as attracted to the fake tree, although I do have to be careful what ornaments are on the bottom.  I hate fluffing the branches after I’ve stuffed them in a plastic tub all year. I hate trying to figure out which branches go on which layer of the tree. I hate untangling the lights and figuring out which ones work and which ones don’t. 

BUT, what I love about decorating for Christmas is seeing all my special treasures that I haven’t seen in a year or two. I  always want to talk about them. Poor Josh got the stories again tonight. 

Here are some of my favorites! 

I got this one the year I graduated from FSU!  Some people think it’s weird to put things like this on the tree, but it is important!!

This was a gift from one of my AWANA girls, YEARS ago.  I’ve had this for at least 15 years. It makes me smile every time.

  

These were my mothers.   She loved music, even though I think she was tone deaf.  These were always on her tree, and she even used them at Christmas parties! Imagine grown up people, playing these little tiny instruments!

My granny made these years ago.  I have some she made for me, and I got some that were my moms.  Now that my Granny is 92, and she’s getting feeble, they mean even more.

This one was my Mom’s and when we sorted her Christmas stuff, this is one of the ONLY ornaments I wanted.  One Christmas my mom painted this set of wooden ornaments.  We all painted some, there is a terrible looking orange teddy bear somewhere that I painted and I think it was before I was even in kindergarten. It is HORRIBLE.  I did a dreadful job.  But Mom painted this one.  We called him “ The Little Boy.”  We used to fight over who got to hang up this one – I always loved it.  Here’s the cutest part: the front and back  are different:

We called him “Butt Boy” but only when Mom couldn’t hear us! 

This sounds really corny, but pulling them out is like seeing old friends again. I always go “AWWWW” when I see certain ones. I have ornaments that special friends have given me, I have ornaments my students have given me – and I love them all.