Collectibles

The children, and sometimes the mister and I, choose or are given a special ornament to mark each year. Some reflect interests or hobbies while others are simply expressions of personal taste. This year, staring at the rows of ornaments in the store, it was with an overwhelming awareness that The Boy would not get to choose an ornament. Turning to leave empty-handed, I narrowly avoided crashing into a stand with small sled ornaments featuring names. Selecting one with each of my children's names regardless of where they call home this year, I proceeded to the checkout with a heaviness not typical of this usually fun errand.
This was not the spirit of the tradition. We joyfully select ornaments when given choices, and are typically tickled when someone opts to give us one such as the hand-carved works of art (2007's angel representation is shown at left.) my parents bring from Arkansas each year. While the pride of our tree are absolutely the handmade ornaments of paper, aluminum foil, pipe cleaner, and toilet paper roll created by our children over the years, Mama collects Hallmark ornaments which means the offspring receive them. (Those no longer go on the tree after discovering that cats climb Christmas Trees. Now they are primarily attached to the garlands that are not going up this year. When the lovies are grown, their collected Hallmark ornaments from over the years will go with them to begin their own trees. Ours? Will still be covered in the children's handmade treasures.) The girls and I made a trip to the Hallmark store after they asked about those ornaments. Faced with the clear indication that this was important to them, it was back to standing before the ornament display. To avoid my previous situation, I suggested a family ornament this year. The only one the girls agreed on was "The Corpse Bride". Really. *sigh*

The girls each picked out their own ornament with the caveat that anything dead or the representation thereof would be vetoed. It tickled me no end that Middle Child selected the fra-gee-lay Major Award of "A Christmas Story" fame. Little Bit went with a star of Bethlehem ornament. Loving that the girls had rather nicely represented both our Christian celebration of the birth of Christ and a bit of favored pop culture goodness, I was rather glad to see the new additions on the tree despite the dangers of not one, but two, cats and the pair of rough-housing dogs.