An old fashioned-tree with sentimental ornaments

It's a bit old fashioned; it's not fancy, it is not decorated with expensive ornaments, and the angel atop is slightly askew, but our table top tree makes me smile when the lights are on. We used to have a very large, six foot tree that took up half the living room. It was beautifully shaped, but it was just too big for us. Last year we downsized to this little bushy tree. It is such a relief not to have to remove an end table, and move our furniture around to make room for a tree. The only thing that was removed was the lamp.

If you click and scroll on top of the photo you can enlarge and see the ornaments. Notice a tiny yellow gauzy angel in the center. She is a treasure. She belonged to Bill's mother and of course is an antique. There's a miniature stocking to the left that belonged to my grandmother. But most of the ornaments are merely gifts from students or are sentimental gifts from children and grandchildren. There's a decorated tuna can on the bottom of the tree with a photo insert of my step daughter, Michele, as a little girl. There's the paper bell shaped ornament that my son, Jason, scribbled on in Sunday School when he was two and a half. When my daughter, Tracey, was five she chose a Christmas card cut-out of Mary and the Baby to be inserted into the top half of a blue L'eggs (pantyhose)egg. The glittered wooden ornaments take me back to the day my first grandchild, (21 year old Ashley), then six, sat out front on the steps one autumn day and helped me paint and decorate them. There are the paper ornaments that each of the babies scribbled on, the hand drawn picture of my cat decorated by grandson, Austin, at age seven. The paper and the foam snowmen made by grandkids, make me aware of how fast our children and grandchildren grew up.

My favorite and most treasured ornament is not the Eskimo as you might imagine, since I lived in Alaska and had my first baby there. It is the ornament just below and to the right. There are two little chipmunks swinging inside a heart. Bill gave it to me. It has a little red heart that says OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS TOGETHER.

If you look to the right of the creche, you'll notice a pink paper with a hand- drawn Nativity scene. My daughter drew it thirty-two years ago when she was eight years old. It has graced the bottom of our tree for over three decades.

God bless you and your family. May the spirit of Christmas shine on your past, brighten your future and dazzle your holidays. When the lights are ablaze on my tree I am reminded of the light in our childrens' and grandchildrens' eyes each Christmas. I'll never forget the one year when Tracey was five; she opened a package, held up her little purse and shouted, "Look Mom! Santa shops at Target too." Ug! I fogot to clip the tag off.