Thanks for the memories...ornaments!

I'm going to take down the Christmas tree tomorrow. I've spent a lot of time here at home this holiday. We weren't able to go home this year, so we had a quiet, cozy Christmas together...just the two of us. Yes, we Skyped while my family opened gifts and got to see the snow falling there for a white Christmas, and we talked on the phone with family also, but mainly it was a relaxing, nice Christmas with no rushing around, no time schedules and time with each other that we don't get very often. Having been home for this extended period of time, I've stared a lot at the Christmas tree and the ornaments that adorn it. Each ornament or decoration is a memory of a person, place or time in our lives. Even the placement of the ornaments means something...like the branches that have three or four ornaments hanging on that one branch were all placed there by our sweet, funny niece, Camille. She did the same thing when we were putting up Mom's tree. I love it...I look at those clumps of ornaments all around the bottom of the tree and immediately see her beautiful smile on that sweet, precious little face. I love looking at the ornaments and going back in time. From the ornaments that Mom and Dad got for me when I was a little girl and the ornaments from John's Grandma whom I never got to meet, to the ones that have been given to us by students throughout the years. There are instruments, music decorations, teddy bears, snowmen, fly fishermen santas, the leg lamp and crate from "A Christmas Story", snowflakes, angels and Santas of every shape and size. The ribbon candy ornaments that Mom and I made together years ago when she visited us in Texas hang all around and remind me of how much Mom loves ribbon candy. The "Our First Christmas Together" ornament from our incredible college friends, Chris and Rick Buttram, always hangs close to the top of the tree. There are the paper mache stars and Christmas trees that Drew and Page, our nieces, made for us when they were little girls. I even have an ornament that Dena Murphy Rose made for me when we were freshmen in high school back in 1981...it's a cross stitched candy cane in a wooden circular frame - and I love it. Each ornament has a story, each story is a memory, each memory is part of who I've become, who I am and who I strive to be. As you put away your Christmas ornaments try to remember where and from whom they came. It makes putting everything away a little bit easier. Then, pick one or two of the people that gave you those ornaments and send them a thank you card for being part of your life...even if the only contact you normally have with them is when you remember them as you put that ornament on the tree each Christmas. Cheers, everyone...it's 2011.