Monday night I put up my Christmas tree for Family Home Evening. Every time I put up the tree-- and all the other decorations-- I'm reminded that really my Christmas tree is like a three-dimensional scrapbook of my life. I can't put up ornaments without thinking of the stories behind them. Unlike really pretty designer Christmas trees that have a theme or color scheme, my tree has no theme. Or rather, the theme is "memories from Sheila's life." I suppose most Christmas trees are like that. Anyhow, here are a few of my favorite stories represented on my Christmas tree:
I have four of those styrofoam balls covered in silk. Those silk-covered balls are then covered in crocheted white lace and have silk poinsettias on top. They were made by Cleo Mickelson, a wonderful woman I visit taught in Priest River, Idaho many years ago. (I don't think she's alive now.) After she had a stroke, she got her hand mobility back by continuing to crochet. These ornaments are also preferred cat toys, so I hang them VERY HIGH on the tree.
One year a family in my ward in Priest River decided to do "the twelve days of Christmas" for me. Every night a gift was left on my porch (including decorating my patio door window with laminated Christmas designs-- those go up every year, too). One decoration was a set of "stained glass" ornaments where you melt the little colored crystals in the oven to look like glass. Those ornaments remind me how fun it is to serve others for Christmas.
A friend at BYU had a "hanukkah party." We made shrinky dink Christmas ornaments. I have a "ten commandments" and a little square dealie with some kind of pseudo-Hebrew lettering on it. Still not sure what it's supposed to be, but it makes me smile.
I do have some of the generic colored glass balls, some blue, some red. A college roommate and I split the ornaments between us when we went our separate ways after graduation. We each took half of each color. Kinda nice to remember what Christmas was like as a poor college student.
A little glass angel. I volunteered at the Provo temple during my Masters degree, working in the youth center on Saturday mornings when families came to be sealed. Basically, I played with kids, got them dressed in white, and got to watch them be sealed to their parents. Awesome. The ornament came from a temple workers Christmas luncheon.
Bubble lights-- I need more strings of these, by the way. A family I knew in Point Clair (Montreal) had bubble lights on their tree. I have them on my tree to remind me of that family because they had so many fun Christmas tree decorating traditions. I'm nowhere near the 14 strings of white lights they'd put up every year, though.
Speaking of the mission, I have a little violin tied to a branch. We taught a wonderful woman named Diane, and one Sunday in investigator class we watched the video "The Touch of the Master's Hand." She was visibly moved by that video. When I went home from my mission (just before Christmas), she gave me the violin ornament and told me to always think of the poem.
Several tatted snowflakes. Two are from Grandma Benson. I have absolutely no memories of Grandma Benson at Christmas since she was always in Utah and we were always in California, but I like the idea of having something of hers on my tree. I also have two little cloth ornaments she sewed and put sequins on: a reindeer and a Santa sleigh (complete with a little plastic Santa head, which actually is a little creepy now that I think about it).
One more tatted ornament: a wreath with a candle in the middle, woven through with a red ribbon. My favorite mission companion made it for me. Coming the day after we'd had a car wreck, it meant even more.
Now I kind of wish that I'd saved some childhood ornaments from when I went through my parents' Christmas decorations when it was time to sell the house. I should've kept the elf playing the banjo . . . and one of the canaries that ties to the branch by its feet. I'm not saying parents should keep the salt-paste clay ornaments you make in first grade and keep even thirty years later after they've cracked in half, but I think the memories are more important than the tree looking like it belongs in a decorator magazine. My Christmas tree reminds me of what's most important in my life. Looking at it makes me happy. I hope yours makes you happy, too.
