The Ornaments of Christmas - Memories

  • By Trish Berg
  • November 28, 2012
  • 352
                        
Struggling with loads of laundry, clutter in the kitchen and chaos in your life? Stress can easily steal our joy. Trish Berg reminds us to simplify the small stuff and find Joy in the Journey. Note: To celebrate Christmas, I am writing a 4 part series on the Ornaments of Christmas, what decorates our lives over the holiday season. Please join me each week for a new ornament. Our family Christmas tree is covered in ornaments. Each ornament seems to have a story behind it, and each year when we decorate our tree, we spend time talking about the ornaments and the memories we share. My favorite ornaments are the ones that hold memories, both happy and sad. Our memories make up who we are. We have the traditional Baby’s First Christmas ornaments for each of our four children, from glass baby booties, to a rocking horse and even a teddy bear. We have handmade ornaments from Aunt Karen that we cherish. She made us hand died baby socks with each of the children’s names stitched on and glass bulbs decorated with M&M logos in memory of Pa Pa Hart who always gave his great grandchildren M&M’s from his pocket. We have an ornament form every family vacation we have taken, from a train from our Polar Express train ride to a bulb from the Great Wolf Lodge. We even have a lobster ornament and a sand dollar from our vacation to Maine. There are softball ornaments to remember our softball years, ice skates to remember our skating days on the creek and one from the first year Mike and I were married and lived near the square in medina. We also have a gingerbread cookie cutter from Ma Ma Hart that reminds us of her love and all the years we made gingerbread cookies with her to hand out to the world. Oh yes, we also have bunches of handmade ornaments from the kids younger years, handprints, Christmas trees and even snowmen. We have feathery angels and jolly Santa’s. The angel that tops our tree was a Christmas gift from 1992, and though her skirt is a bit tattered, she still graces our tree with memories. One ornament that is very special to us is our angel baby. She always sits in the front near the top of the tree and reminds us of the baby we lost so many years ago when I had a miscarriage. It is a sad memory, but still one we cherish nonetheless. And it is the best reminder of the real gift of Christmas, the reason we celebrate this special day because we know we will see her again. Our family Christmas tree is covered in ornaments. Each ornament seems to have a memory behind it, and each year when we decorate our tree, we spend time talking about the ornaments and what they mean to us. Our ornaments also remind us to keep making memories, to live life in the moment and enjoy the blessing of today. Life keeps moving forward, keeps changing. Our kiddos aren’t so little any longer and it feels like time is slipping away. Our memories may help define who we are, but they shouldn’t hold us back from who we should become. Christmas memories do ornament our lives and can glue our family together and help us focus on the love we share. But we also need to remember that Christmas is not about us; it’s about the Gift from God that came wrapped in clothes, lying in a manger. Jesus came to show us the way, show us how to live. If we remember that, than our lives are truly ornamented with love.


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