on the 22nd day of December my blogger gave to me....

ornaments

While, by definition, ornaments are simply meant to make things pretty, what I love are the memories of years past that they conjure up. I won't bore you, or embarrass my kids, with photos and stories of the wonderful little creations they made as preschoolers (what vision! what talent!) but I will share just "a few of my favourite things"....

• a snowball ornament, crafted by our first family dog, Prairie. No other dog has managed to produce quite the same quality. This year it's been cleverly presented in mouth of the sock-puppet likeness of our current Lab -- another memory of a project from years ago. 

• Biplanes, crafted by My Guy an incredibly long time ago and lovingly saved by his mom. I think he cut the tops off a lot of broomsticks for these, but his mom was such a supporter of the arts it seemed a small sacrifice. Thanks Mom.

• colourful Peruvian socks and gloves, which haven't as yet found a place in the holiday decorating this year. These of remind me of the Christmas seasons spent there. I'm taken right back to the smells and sounds of the seasonal markets when I look at these. 

And although the glass ball ornaments at the top of this page are not the originals from my childhood Christmases, they help me remember the thrill of going up into the attic in our family home and carefully handling those boxes of oh so precious and delicate orbs long ago. I hope you also get a chance today to ponder over your own collection of ornaments and decorations and let them take you back to old memories. And I also encourage you to add to your collection this year so that this can be a memorable one too!