Gifts of Christmas Past!

I don’t have many treasures left from my childhood Christmases, but my sister did gift me a couple of china choir singers that used to hang on our tree. And while I haven’t carried around too many artifacts from my first marriage, I still have a handful of ornaments from yules of that era.

We didn’t put up a full-sized tree this year, just the Charlie Brown Christmas tree my sister sent me last year. I love it. It prompts me to remember what the whole holiday’s about. It looked a little bare with just the one ornament that comes with the set, so I rummaged around the Christmas storage containers and found the collection of trinkets and memory joggers I’ve toted around with me through this life of mine.

There they were! The choir guys, and that first ornament I got when I came to Texas, and drums and santas from years when I chose those as the theme of the year. There were a couple from my travels, when I vowed I’d pick one up whenever I did, and one from the last Christmas at a city I thought I’d never leave. There’s the photo ornament of my Dad and me, and one of my dog now in heaven.

It’s an eclectic group – but they’ve hung together for many a season and taking a moment or so to take them out of their storage box each year is my supreme sentimental nostalgic indulgence. It’s just not Christmas until I do.

So even though they don’t hang in glory amongst branches and tinsel, they make a pretty collection on a table around the tree that means so much.

Merry Christmas past, Merry Christmas to come, Merry Christmas Eve!