For the past few weeks my family and I have hemmed and hawed over whether or not we were going to decorate for Christmas this year. The girls and I were saddened by the loss of nearly 20 years worth of ornaments and decorations.
You see, each year, while the kids were sleeping, I’d go to different stores and search for ornaments for each of them. Something that represented them: their interests, their personality, something funny that’d happened during the year. Then I’d take a marker and put their name and year on the bottom of the ornament.
My hope, my dream, was that each kid would take their box of ornaments to their new homes and begin new memories with their families. And they’d have stories to tell, laughs to share.
But much of that was lost in our move from Pennsylvania to Missouri. The rest we thought had been lost in transition from our rental home to our new home. Or so we thought….
Miss 16 loves penguins. Every year, we try to get her something penguin related. And a hat tip to Katie, sometimes changing the perspective makes things look so different.
When my son was a little boy, he used to like to take things apart and put them back together. I assumed someday he’d be a mechanic. In the Fall, he’ll begin his studies as an Engineering major.
When Miss 18 was about 6 years old, she drew a big circle on a piece of paper, inside the big circle she drew seven little circles; when I asked her about it, she said: “The big circle is God and the little circles are us inside God.”
Miss 20 and I share many favorites, the biggest being the color purple. One year, I bought a little purple Christmas tree to put in my living room window. This year the tree will spend its final Christmas with me, next year, it’ll light up my daughter’s dorm room.
This sweet little nativity set reminds me of the last Christmas pageant I was in when we lived in Colorado Springs…
I used to have an extensive collection African American Christmas dolls. They included Santas, carolers, angels, and a beautiful mobile doll in a red santa suit with a white seal. Believe it or not, collecting seasonal African American dolls is incredibly difficult.
And, most precious of all, a little macaroni Christmas tree. Its creator is long forgotten but the glitter lives on…
Thank you to the hubs for following his hunch and checking the box in the garage. No, we don’t have all of our decorations, but we have enough to begin anew.
I’m linking up with Katie at Creole Wisdom for Christmas Decor 2013. It’s her very first link up, join up if you can!
And Merry Christmas to all…
