12/20/08

Christmastime

I bet you're wondering what we must be doing? Hard to believe it's been about a month since my last post. Truth be told, I walked away from the computer. I've been on only in the morning to check email and I didn't make blogging a priority in anyway. But it just occurred to me, since we mailed out our Christmas letter, someone might be checking our blog!

We've been quite delayed in putting up our tree this year. Normally we put it up Thanksgiving weekend but for many reasons we just didn't. So on 12/13 I made myself go thru our storage and find all the Christmas stuff. Poor little Adam toted almost all of it downstairs. We got the tree up after buying a new stand, because amazingly, the stand wasn't in any of this stuff, which does make me wonder if there is more Christmas stuff up there! I've spend the last week organizing all of it. We have some things from John's parents that we've never gone thru. It was a great surprise to "refind" those ornaments, easily recognizing why they were hear, and now hanging them on our tree. I've taken pictures of them so that our children will later be able to tell who the ornament came from and the significance of it. I ditched (not really, will sell them) all of our Sesame Street and Disney ornaments. I guess edging closer to 40 (!!!) makes me think more about what we inherit from Christmas traditions rather than just making it all fun and games.

While my family was not into collecting anything, definitely not Christmas ornaments, after learning that John's family got one every year that I think was usually tied to something they did that year, I started buying them for Adam. More so just to follow the tradition, not because it would be something to stir up memories. But it does. And now I'm glad that I started doing that 11 years ago. Although I must admit my first one for Adam doesn't have any real significance because I was just doing it to do it.

When I hung the ornaments on the tree I realized how bare it was without the SS/D ornaments on it. Off to the store Jani and I went on Monday 12/15 to get more...right thru the sleet and rain and ice (it quit as soon as we left) and we found some really great ones. At Hobby Lobby they had a section of Asian ornaments, so we left with plum blossoms, pagoda, Asian boy, and some other cool ones. We also found a package of nutcrackers that will be 2nd ornament for each child because on 12/9 we went to the Nutcracker Ballet. So in addition to there ornaments we picked up in Taipei, they will have these, tho most likely they won't remember it at all.

It's been good to organize the stuff. Since we got such a late start I chose to not bring everything out. Or rather got it out but repacked it. So now when we're old gray, depending on packing things back in order, I can just say 'go get container 12' and it will hold exactly what I'm looking forward. Not bad eh?

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. Ours will be busy no doubt. And I'm sur excitement will abound. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

1 comment:

Precious Wonders and Little Monkeys said...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Nice to hear about your family ornament traditions. May you have a glorious year with lots of joy. =0) Sara.Sofa