"Weighting" for Christmas

"Christmas time's for dreaming

Thoughts of long ago...

Holidays of childhood

Memories all aglow"  

Alice Kennelly Roberts

This is our tree this year.  It smells divine but what I like more is that it is able to support the weight of our ornaments.  Not that we have an excessive amount, mind you, but some of them carry very precious cargo - our memories.  And then, some of them don't.   Take this one, for example:

Pretty and super sparkly (which pleases the magpie in me) but there are very few memories attached to it.  Very light, filler really. I don't mean to diminish the importance of filler. Filler is good and softens intensity. One day it may take on more meaning.  But right now it is a sparkly pinecone and I can't recall quite how it was acquired.

 But these next ones - my kids gain some muscle in the lifting of them.  The memories they carry are gaining heft and the tree is starting to feel it.



Tak and I bought this at Harrods.  It was the only thing we
could affort to buy there!  Good memories.



A child's small handprint.  This will gain more weight as soon as I remember which child's hand it is an imprint of...
(Did I mention I'm up for the Parent of the Year Award?)

My kids love putting ornaments on the tree.  They do most of the work while I act as facilitator and that is as it should be.  But there is one ornament that is just too heavy for them to manage and it rightfully falls to me to mount it on the tree.  No one but me could put it there. 

   For, you see, this unassuming little elf and I share a moment every year.  As I put him on the tree, years of memories flash through my mind.  He holds them all on his little shoulders without effort. The flashes look similar to this:

Can you see my sweet blue elf behind my head on the tree?  He didn't weigh much back then.  Maybe he was filler...

  




Jason and I trying to hurry Christmas by doing Santa and his elf's job ourselves. 
Sadly, the reindeer we made were 2" high and just couldn't pull us. 
We ended up having to wait for Santa regardless.





 

I hang him on the tree and am grateful for the joy that was mine growing up.  It inspires me to provide that for my own children.  And who knows what will weigh the most to them when they have grown - maybe that random sparkly pinecone.

As an aside, some of you may know, I have more than two brothers but that is all you see in the previous pictures - two were not yet born.   Below is a Perry celebration including ALL the brothers, two of their sweet wives, Mom and Dad and one guy in the back,to the left of my dad, I don't recognize.  As far as I know he isn't a brother - but sometimes I get confused.

Merry Christmas Everyone! 

Thanks for reading!

"When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things - not the great occasions - give off the greatest glow of happiness"  Bob Hope

This picture has nothing to do with Christmas but I love it.  The Brothers and I look ready to take on the world - or at least the 70's - but we happily paused before world domination to wait for my brother Ryan (the baby, not pictured) to grow up and join in the adventure.

Celebrate your Family!