The chosen few

It pains me to admit this but I liked Sage's idea of his recent entry which was a trip around parts of his Christmas tree so I'm copying it here.

It was a couple years after my last parent died when I finally got around to dividing up the ornaments (what they say is true...every item seems special right after they die but as the years go on, the truly special items stick out and you can get rid of more things). There were quite a few personalized ones with my name or one of my brother's names or ones that we had made. Now when I see one of these ornaments on my brothers trees, it warms the cockles of my heart and I feel the link that is still there despite the miles between these once united ornaments.

The first one of these ornaments is this personalized "written in the stars" one that I remembered when my mom bought three with our names on it from our high school's annual Christmas bazaar:

I wonder if Sage ever saw this constellation.

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There is one set of ornaments that was purchased years ago with me and my brothers in mind that I haven't been able to divide up:

They are sort of the faux German Christmas ornament replica of each of us. I apologize for the focus issue but since I came out crystal clear, I didn't see the need to retake the picture. :-)


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Another ornament as old as time is the elf:
His unofficial name is 'the hole filler' since his primary duty for as long as I can remember is to fill the gaps that one can have in a tree.


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When Big A moved in, he came with a few ornaments of his own:


These were given to him by his aunt so while I don't see the reason behind a fish and a carrot as a Christmas ornament, they are important to him so I hang them....towards the back of the tree.


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To add to the old and to the weird, there is some new pop culture related ones:


One of the very, very few ornaments that Big A came with that I liked was this Spiderman which I thought was kind of cool the way he swings from branch to branch. Strawberry Shortcake and her friend, Apple Blossom are there just to try to even up the female to male ratio thanks to the number of male superheroes on the tree (we also have Superman and the Flash).


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Lastly, an ornament from our wedding trip to Las Vegas:

While most newlyweds go to Hallmark to buy their special 'Our First Christmas' ornament, this holds special importance because a) we got it when we were there to be married and b) the picture is similar to the slot machine that we won $700 dollars on the day before the wedding.

In amongst those above, we have photo ornaments of loved ones who have passed as well as other ornaments both new and old. As Big A said while he was looking at last week, it's quite an eclectic mix but all together, it works. That could also be said for the two people who created it.