Sad day!! A naked tree

I'm taking my Christmas tree down today and that is always a sad day for me!! Usually it doesn't come down until the 15th or later but since that is the day I am scheduled to have my incisional hernia repaired I figured it needed to come down this week. I love a Christmas tree. I wouldn't mind putting one up and leaving it there all year just changing to ornaments to Valentines Day and then St Patrick's Day and then Easter, etc. I love the soft glow at night when all the other lights are off and I can just enjoy.

As I undecorate it though (as when I set it up), I take a minute to enjoy the ornaments I have. Every time we go someplace new I buy an ornament for my tree!! I have a sailboat and a lighthouse from Portland Head,Connecticut, a gorgeous butterfly and hummel figurine from a little German village on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River where it runs past Cincinnati, An ornament from the Statue of Liberty and a big apple that says Empire State Building, New York. I have a mannequin head in silver brocade and an actor's masque in purple and gold and green from New Orleans. I have an old fashioned Santa that I bought at the Old Post Office in Washington DC. I have a seashell from one of my trips to Hawaii and a wooden nativity cut-out and and a gold metal cut-out that says "the Cradle of Liberty" from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I have a Lennox china snowflake from San Marcos that I bought at the factory outlet stores just South of town. I have a blown glass hummingbird and a birdfeeder that reminds me of my mama and several trains that remind me of my dad.

I have a metal Cinderella Castle that Dirk and Da brought me back from their Honeymoon to Walt Disney World. I have ornaments that Ed brought me back from Germany and I have a beautiful glass ball full of sand from the Cayman Islands that Kelly and Jamie brought me from their cruise in November. I have other ornaments that Mauri and Kecia have given me through the years. Mauri gave me some darling glass snowmen that will remind me of our fun mom and daughter dates. I am also crediting Mauri with some cute red metal ornaments that look like a tricycle and a childs rocking chair with adorable bears sitting on or in them. Kecia gave me a cute snowman from California while on her mission. And Kris and Shawn have given me some wooden ornaments with pictures of my grandkids in them. I also have one of Adrie Anna when she was about a year old. Then there are the jewel like ornaments that I think Kris helped Mickey make. And then there is the crystal heart she gave me the year my mother died - with the heart came a beautiful poem that tells me she is waiting for me on the other side - and that she still loves me. I have snowflakes that I saved from my sister Merrilee's ornaments - and little tiny nutcrackers that remind me of my growing up years. I have a counted cross stitch ornament that I myself made about 25 years ago! I have a crystal that hangs on a thin wire and catches the lights as they glow. I THINK I bought it in Arizona but I am not sure. One of my close friends gave me a gingerbread man in a brown paper sack that is sooo cute; Even the pink sparkly [:-)] poinsetta flowers are a memory because they were part of a whole bunch of corsages I made for our Ward Christmas Choir the year I sang in it... and ended up with pneumonia!!

What I am saying, in my wordy over much way is that it is a tree of memories. Each time I look at the different ornaments I am taken back to a place or time in my life where I have happy memories. Ed and I have had a lot of fun traveling to a lot of different places here in the US of A and each of these ornaments reminds me of those different trips. This is just one of the reasons that I love Christmas so very much - and why I hate to take my tree down as the season comes to a close. I gave Kecia my big tree last year and got me a tall thin one that I love (and it doesn't take up so much room), but the tree is getting more crowded each year. I keep thinking that I need to stop buying memories...but I enjoy them so much I just can't.