As I may or may not have occasion to mention on this forum before - I did not grow up celebrating Christmas. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a teensy bit jealous of my friends who'd come back to school after break trading tales of what they'd had under the Christmas tree. More so, though, I was always jealous of my grandmother's Christmas tree. She had the most delicate glass ornaments passed down to her from her mother. They were all balls and drops, the kind with foil indented in the middle. I could sit for hours holding them gently, trying not to knock off the few remaining grains of glitter. I loved those ornaments.
It's funny the sentimental attachment people have to the ornaments that bedeck their trees each year. Most people I spoke with Friday night at the Anamosa Christmas Tree Walk told me that they're favorites were either hand made or ones that they associated with life's precious moments, like the birth of a child. This is something I'm just starting to understand.
Not having celebrated Christmas for the first couple decades of my life, I don't have boxes of ornaments, each one triggering a childhood memory. My husband does, though. His mother painstakingly packed away every ornament he ever made. We have plaster of paris Christmas bells and popsicle stick nativities. I love watching him gingerly place them on the tree each year.
So we're starting to do the same with our family. Each year we buy one ornament for our son and another for our family. So far our collection is small. But, someday, when our children are grown, we'll be able to pass the ornaments along to them so they can start their own traditions.