While I do cherish these ornaments, they are not the most meaningful to me.
Having a Martha Stewart Christmas tree is nice and all but I prefer ornaments made out of Popsicle sticks, yarn, pipe cleaners, beads, or wood colored with markers.
We also have cut-out photos, real birds’ nests, and origami creations fashioned from standard-issue sticky notes, as well as crinkle paper garland made from the discarded left edge of perforated notebook paper that chronicle my boys’ lifetimes, in yearly chapters.
My ultimate favorite story is told by the hand-painted less-than-delicate tin can “ornaments” from my mother’s childhood.
About the size of a small vessel of tomato paste, the cans are painted with bright stripes, candy canes, and dots.
When my grandparents were first starting out, during World War II, they did not have very much materially. Legend has it; they drove an army surplus jeep with holes in the floorboards (this story always made me think of Fred Flintstone’s foot-powered car).
I came to understand that the tin can ornaments were an embarrassment to my grandmother: she was ashamed of not being able to afford “real” ornaments and the hand-painted ones symbolized hard times.
We all have hard times.
There have been Christmases where I have wondered how I could afford the dog and pony show I thought I should put on for my boys to make their Christmas “magical.”
There were a couple of years that I went to the local food pantry and our community closet for help with Christmas gifts for the kids.
I love my grandmother’s ornaments because to me, they represent the assurance that throughout my family’s history, Christmas always comes and there will be light at the end of the dark times.
Read a longer story about my grandmother's ornaments here.
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