Christmas Ornaments

A couple of years back we had the misfortune of losing all our Christmas ornaments.  Some I started with – made by my Grandmothers or Mrs. Caca (who lived across the street from us in Indiana in 1963) – and some I collected through the years with Chuck (our very first Christmas he gave me a simple glass ornament for our tree) and many I had made.  And so it was, until Christmas 2011, we went without a tree.  Last year, we started fresh with a white christmas tree loaded with silver ornaments.  Beautiful as it is – and so suitable for our home in California – none of the ornaments carry any memory or history for me other than the evenings spent by it last Christmas.  This is the first year we have had a tree in Dallas.  My first memory is the afternoon before Christmas that PD came and helped me set it up…  The days before Thanksgiving with my parents, the mornings by the fireplace, our first holiday PM, and the decorations you see in the post.  The Santa was a gift from my parents and was placed at the top of the tree.  It is felt, like many of my old ornaments… CF absconded with the Polar Bear at our Christmas party by sticking it in his pocket, and last – and certainly not least – SW’s cap – a constant reminder that the true measure of the holiday isn’t in what we possess but in the friends we make along our way.