Down Memory Lane

While decorating the Christmas tree I always get nostalgic remembering Christmases past.  David and I have shared so many together with children and without children.  It was so much fun having children to get us up early Christmas morning and watching them racing down the stairs to open the presents that Santa had left.  It’s not quite the same with two “old” people who get up later and creak down the stairs and make coffee and eat something before we open our presents to each other, but I would not want to change anything for the world.  Christmas has always been special to me.  I love the carols, the church services that celebrate Jesus’ birth, the Sunday school parties where grownups act like kids sometimes.  I love that we celebrate Christ’s birth even though we are probably a few months off on when He was born.

Hanging each ornament on the tree reminds me of a past Christmas.

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Santa on a stork.  David’s grandmother gave this to us when we were expecting our first child, our older son.   The son who did the 5K with me on Thanksgiving day.  I have kept it and put it on the tree every year since.

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This little snowman candle looks its age.  It use to hang on my grandfather’s tree.  One year Daddy, my brothers and I went back in the woods behind my grandfather’s house and cut down a tree and brought it back to decorate.  I don’t remember my grandparents having a Christmas tree very often, but I remember this one particular year.  The ornaments were few, but I loved them and when both my grandparents had passed away, I was fortunate enough to get their ornaments.  I have two of these snowmen.  They are probably seventy or so years old.  I love them.

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A friend traveled to Europe and brought back this cute little wooden doll.  Pull a string and her legs go up.

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Our grandchildren made both of us an ornament one year.  We found one broken this year which made me sad, but we still have this one.

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McDonald’s gave these away in Happy Meals one year.  I kept this one and put it on the tree.  A Christmas mouse.

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We made a trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania one year and I bought some tree ornaments.  It was the vacation when, as we were driving there, our younger son sat up and said, “I think I left the freezer door open.”  We had this big freezer that had a door that was hard to shut and I was always reminding the kids to shut it tight.  I guess it had been ingrained in our son’s head and he thought he had left it open and panicked.  David and I just looked at each other and said, “Well, it’s too late now.  If all the food is defrosted there is nothing we can do about it.”  I actually even forgot about it the rest of the trip and when we got home, the freezer door was closed tightly and all the food was fine.  But it makes for a funny memory.

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Things our children made at school always get put on the tree.

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A few years ago we went to the Virgin Islands and I bought this wonderful sailboat with Christmas lights strung on the sail.

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Through the years I have made ornaments.  This is suppose to be a reindeer with twig antlers.

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A tiny manger scene I have had for years.

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One year my daughter and I decided we didn’t like all the “old” ornaments so we went to Target and bought all new balls and decorations for the tree.  David did not like that tree so he put up another one with all the old ornaments on it.  Now I very seldom use the new ornaments we bought although I do love these particular ones.

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I love our tree.  We considered not putting it up this year as we had put a tree on the new porch, but it just didn’t seem right not to have a tree in the house so while I took a three mile walk last Sunday with Belle and Molly Marshmallow which became a drag me three miles walk, David put the tree together(yes, it’s a fake tree)  and we decorated it and I am so glad we did.  It sits in my girly room where I can see it while I work on Christmas projects.

Christmas memories are wonderful.  Sometimes they make you laugh, sometimes they make you miss someone, and sometimes they just make you happy.  Hope you have more happy memories than sad ones this Christmas.  Bye.

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