My favorite holiday decorations are the ones I get out year after year.
As I sorted through boxes and bins of holiday decorations this week, I found myself asking, “How is it possible I’m getting these out again? It feels like just yesterday that I was packing it all away.” It’s hackneyed, but true: each passing year seems to fly by quicker than the one before, and I find that setting up the same familiar decorations helps to tie this Christmas to the one before it and the one before that…while also marking time passing and my children growing up, right before my eyes.
It reminded me of a post I wrote a few years ago that I like to dust off, brush up and re-post every holiday season. I hope you enjoy!
Every December, the kids and I take a trip to the store, where each child gets to pick out one ornament to put on the tree. The intention is to give each child a small supply to take off to college or their first apartment or wherever life takes them. And of course, in the meanwhile we get a pretty tree that’s full of character but growing more crowded by the year.
On these shopping ventures it can be hard to stay on task: just get one ornament per person, then head for the checkout aisle. I see shiny stuff everywhere and suddenly I find myself creating a need for those tree lights shaped like the ones from the 30s or that new beaded runner for the table.
And of course, I don’t always manage to quell the urge. Our wooden Advent calendar was a fairly recent impulse purchase (though I’d been wanting to buy a nice one for years). A few years ago I really needed new gold balls to replace all the ones that were pulled off the tree and broke when I had toddlers in the house. And I always find myself looking at new tablecloths and candles.
But last time I surveyed my holiday decorations, I was struck by just how many of those things have been constant from year to year. I’ve had my Mary/Jesus statue and wooden creche, both gifts from my mother for over 15 years (that’s nearly my whole adult life). I have a wire tree that I hang little antique-looking ornaments on. I remember finding the ornaments in a little gift shop here in town–years before I lived here!–and loving them. That was at least five years ago. There’s a tin that my Aunt Kay gave me when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. (it came with a puzzle inside; the puzzle did not survive my childhood, but the tin did). The Santa with his reindeer was a gift from Jon’s aunt the year we got married. Many of the ornaments on the tree date back to the beginning of our marriage, some longer.
My old Mary-an old friend I look forward to seeing year after year.
And I realize that the things I get the most satisfaction from are the ones that have been around the longest, that I pull out year after year. I absolutely love taking out my creche and setting up my little wire “tree” and seeing my old friends emerge from the tissue paper.
I even love putting it all away when Christmas is over, wrapping each item carefully and looking forward to seeing them all again. To me, one of the coziest parts of Christmas is seeing the same, familiar old decorations around the house and knowing that no matter how much things change, our Christmas decor looks pretty much the same year after year.
When I really think about it, I get by far the most enjoyment from the things that have been constant from year to year. They may fall out of fashion or chip, come unglued or lose pieces, but I still plan on hauling them out year after year. When it comes to holiday decorations, I just really love my old stuff.
And that’s a good thing to keep in mind when I’m looking for an excuse to stay away from yet another display of new holiday tablecloths and runners.
Do you have a holiday decorating ritual? Do you like to use the same things again and again or have special memories attached to certain ornaments and decorations?
I don’t have a ton of decorations … but what we do have has been around with us for a while. We have a big artificial tree we put up each year. We have some of my childhood ornaments that are very special to me, some we bought when we first got married, and then the kids ones we added through the years. I do love looking at all the ornaments each year.
My mom gave us a homemade advent calendar that we put up and take turns flipping the numbers to reveal a little hand sewn picture. She also made all of our stockings — those kids made of felt, beads, sequences. And a tree skirt we actually lay out on our dining room table. (Wow – I’m really lucky for my mom, aren’t I!). We have a nice fancy nativity we bought the first year we lived in this house. I think that’s about it … I’m just not a “decorator” and with so many little ones in so many years I didn’t want a lot of breakables around the house. We dont have a basement, and with the hot summers here in Texas, you can’t store delicates in the attic either. We are a family of six and space is getting tight in our house. My older ones are really starting to get interested in decorating this year; and I think we will make an effort to do more. I felt a little guilty when my 5yo colored a wreath on paper, cut it out, and scotch taped it to our fireplace! So, I went to Michael’s and bought some small plain fake wreaths, ribbon, and jingle bells and made it a family project Monday night to decorate them. Now they are hanging all around our house 🙂
I love the old stuff so much that I don’t buy new stuff!
We had a very tradition-laden Christmas when I was growing up, and I love all of it–but Mr. Sandwich and I are working on building our own traditions, particularly now that we have Baguette. I’m not sure what form they’ll take, but I’m confident that we’ll like what we wind up with.
But I once saw a wreath made of buttons–probably somewhere in the realm of Martha Stewart–and some day, our decorating traditions will include that. Once I make it.
I like your Mary holding the baby Jesus. Maybe there’s some symbolism to it that I don’t know about, but now as a mom I think it’s weird to see all the nativities with the newborn baby lying alone in the manger while the parents look on–I want to see Mary lovingly holding her baby. It seems far more likely, realistic, and…well, loving, to me! 🙂
This will date me, but I have a set of wooden, paint by number Peanuts/Snoopy ornaments I made when I was in high school. Certainly not the highest quality of keepsake, but I remember I took them with me to college and my first apartment and they’ve been part of my/our tree ever since, even as more ornaments come into the mix. Now, with our daughter, they have become some of her favorites. And for her, since she is adopted from China, we buy her traditional Chinese hand-painted glass ornaments every year, so that she will have her own collection when she moves out. Which, of course, I won’t let her do until she’s 35. 🙂