by Jan Drexler
A lot of families have "themed" Christmas trees. One of my friends loves the Peanuts comic strip by Charles Schulz, so you can guess what her theme is! Another friend loves red and white decorations, so of course her tree has white lights and red ornaments of all kinds. My cousin is a Chicago Bears fan...yes, you know what her tree is like!
I'm going to share some pictures of my favorite ornaments from our tree - will you be able to guess the theme?
This first ornament came from my husband's parents when we were first married. It had been a part of their Christmas since they were married in 1947. Even though we've lost a few of the ornaments they gave us in our cross country moves, this one and a blue one are still with us!
I made this ornament when I was about thirteen or fourteen. My mom brought the kit home from work or somewhere - I don't remember where it came from - but she wanted me to put it together. I spent a weekend working on it, and have never made anything with beads since then! It was tedious, and I didn't really enjoy it...but, you know...my mom wanted me to do it. Every time I look at it I'm reminded that at least once in my life I did something just because I loved my mom.
As much as I disliked working with beads, my grandmother loved them! This ornament came as a package decoration when I was in high school. I don't remember what the present was, but this little bell that Grandma made for me has been on my Christmas tree ever since that year.
In 1979 I met this guy... By 1980, we were enough of a couple that he bought me a Christmas present. By the next Christmas, we were engaged. I'll never forget his first Christmas gift to me - this sweet ornament!
My mom and I shared a love for Hummel pictures and figurines. She bought this ornament for me at Bronner's Christmas store in Frankenmuth, Michigan. If you've ever driven up I-75, I know you've seen the advertisements for this store. It's a classic, but it isn't for everyone. Have you ever been there?
In early 2019, we suddenly lost our tri-color corgi, Thatcher. I hate saying goodbye to dogs, don't you? But several months later, we brought Jack home. When I was at Bronner's that fall, I saw this ornament. Jack will have a place on our tree almost as long as he will have a place in our hearts. (Note to self: on our next trip to Michigan, we need to add a border collie ornament for Sam!)
2019 was also the year we moved into our "retirement" home. After moving all over the place for more than thirty-five years, we are finally in a house that we don't plan to sell any time soon, so we bought our first "New Home" ornament. We hope to make many sweet memories in this home!
Have you guessed the "theme" of our Christmas tree?
It's memories.
I think that's one of the things that makes Christmas so special. Not the lights, the music, the presents, or even the tree. It's the memories of Christmases past, spent with people we love - and the opportunity to make THIS Christmas another sweet memory for ourselves and others.
And all because God humbled Himself to become Immanuel...God With Us.
Do you have a theme for your tree? Or would you like to share one of your favorite Christmas memories?
Tell us all about it in the comments!
Jan, this is so beautiful and so beautifully expressed. I think it's what many of us, including me, are hanging on to in this drastically different Christmas season. We can't do the parades or the concerts or the Festivals of Trees. (I was going to see "The Nutcracker" on Saturday and I found out it was cancelled when I was waiting for my daughter in the parking lot.) So we warm ourselves with memories...and for us, the knowledge that He Is Christmas.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been able to put up all my heirloom ornaments for a couple of years now because we don't have the room for a large tree, but my house is still filled with memories. I always put out the vintage Santa figures my mom collected for me (well, seh started in the 50s, they weren't 'vintage' then), and I always put up the lighted ceramic village from my father's collection. And whatever I read, bake or watch will be steeped in tradition because that's who we are, right?
This year I'm thinking a lot about Amy Grant's "Grown-up Christmas List" song because the things we really want don't come in packages with bows. My older daughter had TWO scares in early December, a COVID scare and a cancer scare. The biopsy came back negative and she never developed COVID, but we were hanging on for dear life for a while there. You don't know until you know.
This is a great post. Off to Bible study, may be back later.
Kathy Bailey
Your Kaybee
Grateful in New Hampshire
Kathy, I'm so sorry for your daughter's scares, but grateful all was well.
DeleteYou reminded me of all the other decorations we accumulated over the years that also hold special memories. There's a musical snow globe that's over 30 years old now. The characters parade through a much evaporated environment (not sure how water evaporates from inside a snow globe, but it did, but the music plays on and the memories are sweet. So many decorations that remind us of happy family times.
So glad your daughter is well after those scares, Kathy!
DeleteYou and Cate are so right - it isn't only the tree, but the other things surrounding Christmas that remind us of earlier times. The house is filled with Christmas cheer!
Kathy, glad your daughter is OK.
DeleteKathy, God bless you. I know a few people already who've gotten the vaccine for Covid and my mom in a nursing home still can't have people come in but she can go out for short visits...which we hope to arrange this week.
DeleteHopefully with the vaccine there is a light at the end of the tunnel...at least for Covid. God bless your daughters, too. So stressful.
Emmanuel! God with us... so perfectly beautiful and wonderful and I still can't figure out if we are worthy of the trust He put in us, but gosh.... I hope we are!
ReplyDeleteI love the memories of a tree... the walk through time.
We are so blessed to have had lengthy paths, my friend.
*sigh* He is perfectly beautiful and wonderful, isn't He? But we will never be worthy on our own - it is only through His grace that we can do anything worthwhile.
DeleteAnd that lengthy path, spread with gentle slopes sometimes and dangerous cliffs at other times, but always so blessed. :-)
Good morning, Jan. Our tree was always similar. Every ornament has a special story that gets retold as they are taken from the box and placed on the tree. There's the little Christmas rocking horse that's really a card my husband's aunt gave him when he was a wee child. He always remembered how she made him feel like the most special child. When he was grown and talking to his cousins about her, he realized that her special gift was making each child feel that he or she was THE special one.
ReplyDeleteWe always bought a new ornament for my girls when they were little - some sort of matching pair. There were the sisters snowmen one year, the similar but different Winnie the Pooh ones, the year we bought jewel-colored stars and everyone had their own color, and so on.
This year, things are different. My husband is no longer with us and my daughters are together in Maine while the pandemic keeps me here in NY. They made do with their own small but growing collection and plenty of white lights. Being in Maine, the pine tree state, the tree is the real star. But my daughter mentioned the other day that it just felt off without all the special family ornaments. That's okay. We'll appreciate them more next year.
Thanks for sharing your memories with us. Your ornaments are beautiful.
My children have one of those aunts. She is blessed with the gift of making each person feel unique and loved. Aunts like that are precious!
DeleteI hope you and your daughters will be able to be together next year!
Prayers for you this Christmas, Cate. It must be hard not to be able to be with your daughters. Hope next year will be much different.
DeleteI have 3 Christmas trees in my house because I love so many different types of trees. The main tree in the family room is our tree full of memories with the ornaments we collect each year, including the ornaments that represent our year. It has multi-colored lights. Our second tree is the angel tree which has all white lights and gold and silver balls as well as all my angel ornaments. This tree is in memory of our daughter we lost at 17 months old. My third tree is just a small one and it is my Coca-Cola tree. It has red and white lights and red and white balls and Coca-Cola ornaments. It is just a fun little tree. I do know a lady who has about 6 or 7 trees and each one is a different theme. I don't think I would have the time for that many.
ReplyDeleteLOL! I don't think I'd have time for three trees! But I know each one is special, especially the angel themed tree.
DeleteJan! I love this. I have always been so bad at preserving precious ornaments and...as result I have NONE. No, not a single ornament that holds special meaning.
ReplyDeleteBut I did make crewel work stockings for my four daughters when they were babies (ok the youngest was FIVE before hers was done) and those come out every year and are really beautiful. I loved doing those and am so glad I have them.
I just had to laugh! I made cross-stitch stockings for each of my children...and the youngest didn't get his until he was, seven? Nine?
DeleteThe stockings you made are keepsakes!
Jan, what special ornaments!! You know, I think I made one of those beaded kits, too! I don't know what happened to it. Maybe it's at my parents' house in the attic. I'll have to look!
ReplyDeleteThose kits were so popular for a few years! I hope you find yours.
DeleteI remember those beaded ornaments. Our next door neighbor was crazy about them. Didn't you jab pins into a styrofoam ball, like one thousand pins, one for each bead?
DeleteDave's grandma made so many of those ornaments... she loved them. It was a unique to Grandma Blodgett thing, the same one who built the reindeer and Santa I have on the front lawn... she loved creating! Jan, you brought back such a nice memory for me.
DeleteHi Jan:
ReplyDeleteReading your post and seeing those ornaments brought back many wonderful feelings from times long past. Decorating the Christmas tree was a major event in my childhood. Four children were excited about the event. We always had live 'family-selected' trees approved with great care. The ornaments were each hand warped in tissue paper from the Christmas before. Each was unwrapped, one at a time, by a child. There were oohs and ahas when a few prize ornaments were uncovered. "That's from before you were born", my younger sister would be told.
Some memories come with feeling tracks. You can actually feel what you felt those many years ago. It's like time travel. Wonderful.
But parents die. Children grow up and seem to move away as far as mathematically possible from each other. Ornaments get lost, broken, and some divided between families. The memory carriers may be lost and gone but they did their job.
There is a happy glow now from those Christmas feelings. Given such real feeling, time becomes but an illusion. If I can feel a loved one again, then that loved one is here with me once again.
If I were Bob Hope, I'd sing "Thanks for the memories". In lieu of that, I'll just say, "Jan: Thanks for the memories."
Enjoy a blessed Christmas!
You expressed the value of memories so well, Vince. It's time-travel. Our memories help us experience those wonderful times all over again.
DeleteMerry Christmas!
Oh, so sweetly and aptly put, my friend.
DeleteHow lovely, Jan! Christmas memories are so special! I have a 1980 ornament...the year our daughter was born. Also, I love Hummels and have a number of them. Your ornament is beautiful. A falling Christmas tree? When I was in second grade and living in Japan with my parents, I made them a special card and climbed behind the tree to hide it until Christmas day. You've probably guessed. The tree toppled to the floor. My parents lived in Germany after the war, and all their German ornaments broke. Oh my! I was in tears, but my parents comforted me and I remember their hugs and understanding. As you mentioned with your tree, from then on, my father wired our trees to a windowsill or baseboard to ensure a similar accident never occurred again.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I never crawled behind another tree.
You had very wise parents, Debby. But I'm sure they knew you didn't mean to topple the tree!
DeleteLots of precious memories all in one place! I love that corgi ornament. It looks just like Jack. Have the puppies left your tree alone?
ReplyDeleteI do love that corgi ornament!
DeleteAnd would you believe the tree has survived? Even though we have it in the middle of the floor, Jack and Sam have barely glanced at it. But we decorated it slowly. We had it in the stand for two days before we dared to put lights on it! The whole experience gives me hope that by next summer we'll have two fairly calm adult dogs. Maybe. :-)
Your tree is so special, Jan. I love that you have ornaments that your parents had from the beginning of their marriage, too. That makes it even more special. Not only memories but legacy. :-)
ReplyDeleteI have lots of memory ornaments on my tree, as well as the fun ones just because we liked them. My favorite is a snowman made of sand dollars we bought on our honeymoon for our first ornament. He's survived 16 years and I hope he lasts much longer.
I love the memories that each of the ornaments represents. How cool that you thought to buy one while you were on your honeymoon! I wish we had done that. :-)
DeleteWhat a Beautiful tree Your ornaments are so amazing We have so many memory ornaments on our tree also Merry Christmas To You and Yours!
ReplyDeleteWe fill in with generic ornaments - red ones and some silver ones - but the ornaments that remind us of loved ones are the ones we like best.
DeleteWhat lovely ornaments, Jan. Thank you for sharing them with us. Merry Christmas, Jan.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mindy! Merry Christmas!
DeleteI love your memory ornaments. How comforting. Sadly all my memory ornaments were destroyed by my ex so my tree is mostly things I have made or that authors have gifted me for reading and reviewing for them.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's too bad, Lucy! But it sounds like you're gathering a new collection of memories!
Deletelovely ornaments Jan. Music is the theme for our little four foot tree. Music notation garland, instrument ornaments and ornaments I've been given by my music students over the years.
ReplyDelete