Taking Down the Tree

It is January and the holidays are officially over. Family has come and gone, meals have been shared, gifts presented and accepted, all in a whirl of colored lights, ribbons and tinsel. We took down the Christmas tree today. I like to take time and re-visit certain ornaments before they get wrapped up and put away for another year. So many of them are rather like old friends. You can sit down and remember Christmas' past, friends and relatives, your childhood. I get rather sentimental as if you couldn't tell!

Some ornaments are special because of the person who gave it to you. I hold a special place in my heart for a ceramic, white cat that my Dad gave me when I was young. It is a bust of a cat with a sprig of holly.

There is a Navajo story telling doll ornament and a cinnamon turtle with a tiny turquoise turtle fetish from Arla in Texas. A metal snowflake ornament that were gifts at a friends wedding.

Then there are the ornaments that remind you of certain places that you have been- a beautiful ceramic dancer that I bought in Virginia;the Swedish Tomten on a swing that Mom brought back from a trip years ago.

There are ornaments that reflect our heritage- Swedish wooden stars, ornaments made of wheat, lucky pigs and tomten, horses and Yule goats.

Glass clusters of red and white mushrooms that clip to the branches.

Every year I make photograph ornaments of family, friends and pets. I make frames around them from pine cones and cinnamon sticks. I have old black and white photographs of my grandparents, of my grandfather with his bi-plane in WWI, my Mom in a canoe on a lake with her Dad. Friends peek out from the branches with smiling faces, cats recline on favorite pillows, and a picture of my brother holding a trout that he didn't actually catch. Nephews and niece playing sports and hiking, a photo of me as a teenager peeking out from behind a tree, walking on a beach at the Cape with Mom.

Of course there are the ornaments that don't have sentimental leanings but just add beauty to the tree; red mercury glass balls, white glass pine cones, acrylic leaves of different types that reflect the little white lights so prettily. The Mark Roberts Christmas fairies that I just adore because of their whimsy.

We have a tradition on Christmas Eve where each place setting at dinner

has a gift of an ornament that everyone gets to open. Our new additions are a wooden squirrel atop a pine cone, a fat cat and a little book about the wisdom of women. I love watching as each is opened, the smiles and the laughter, the delight of matching the perfect ornament to the person. A new memory to unwrap next December.

Happy New Year!