Not Just Ornaments

My house is full of Christmas, though my kitchen table/buffet still keeps the beauty of Fall and Thanksgiving. I was decorating my Christmas tree the other day. It is a big task, but oh, the wonderful time I have holding each ornament, remembering the circumstances, the giver...There is the orange beaded star that came from Carol, a dear Jewish lady that I worked with at my first real job. There are the "baby's first Christmas" ornaments (I reluctantly gave those ornaments to my older married kids) I hang them near each other, now a group of three, remembering when I was given each one and those tiny precious babies that made our family what it is. There are the yellow booties, given to me for Allison by a dear friend who was a victim of breast cancer. I remember spending time in the bathroom stalls with Marianne Scott, I nursing Ethan, while she nursed Trevor...she helped me become a better mom. There is the Schroeder that Sister Theone Hamblin, my piano teacher, gave me. There are the ornaments from Dorrie's travels. There are the painstakingly cross stitched ornaments my mom makes each year, with her eyes growing worse and worse. There are the sweet ornaments of felt, salt dough, and rice, with pictures: treasured gifts from my children, made at school. There are the ornaments from family: Aunt Bonnie's Salt Dough Treasure, Dorrie's Mrs. Claus, the olive wood ornaments from Sherry, the nativity ornaments from Marina, the grapes from Susan when she lived in Modesto, and now the snowflakes we get from her in Denver. There is the painted scene Judy Pulver made when I worked in Primary many years ago. There is a beautiful glass cat that Dee had when we got married. There are also the wooden ornaments, very simple paint by number, that Dorrie gave me when we first married. There is the needle point pickle Allison made for good luck! There are the ornaments that I have made each and every year of our married life: starting in fabric until Dee purchased tole painting lessons for me, and from then on, there are wood creations, with wood Mom's friend, Ed, used to give me that he salvaged from produce box ends. I remember when I painted those: the cowboy Santa that I painted by candlelight after a terrible summer storm took our roofing and our power for days, the ornaments I sat by Woods Canyon Lake painting while my family fished on vacation. There are the ornaments that came with stories, from Visiting Teachers, from neighbors. Each a cherished memory. And...there are the ones that aren't there! One year I made ice cream cone ornaments, using real cones, with styrofoam and caulk for the ice cream. I would go into the living room and find the cones eaten off by one of my curious, and hungry kids. And, another time, I went to the tree and found these slobbery empty gum machines Marina had made and glued together: that's right...my kids sucked on the ornaments to get the gum out! All tell a story, all bring a memory. I guess it's kind of like our lives: each little ornament, each experience, make up us, and end in something greatly more beautiful that the individual parts.