Mound of Memories

There is a pile of memories lying on my dining room table.  I wake up this morning at what tomorrow will be the normal time to get up to follow the rut of my life.  I look out the window and it is foggy. Not untypical for where I live and not untypical for how I live.  I know that there is so much to do some fun, some obligatory and some necessary.  But there is definitely a pile of memories on the table. These memories are the Christmas ornaments that I removed from my late Christmas tree.  The poor tree lies in the gutter waiting its final appointment with the garbage man that should come to get it this morning if my son remembered to place it in the street.  I forgot to remind him to do that when I told him to take the trash out last night.  I will need to go check that soon.  But the tree is going to be gone but the memories are still lying on the table in a pile.  Those memories are my link to the past. Each ornament has its own life and its own story. 

I remember a hot August day riding in a rented moving van moving from southern California to this god forsaken valley. I remember leaving my few friends.  I remember it all. But what I remember most riding in that van with no air conditioning and the over 100 degree temperature sitting between my dad driving and my mom sitting in the passenger seat with two boxes held on her lap.  In those boxes was her most precious possessions. Was it gold, silver or, crystal?  No it was her Christmas ornaments.  Those few most antique mercury glass baubles her mother had given her.  They were my heritage.  They were what passed to me to keep.

As the years progressed those two small boxes grew.  Each year a few more ornament arrived from Seattle to my mom from my granny and a few were added to fill that yearly visitor, the tree.  So each year I get the boxes out and unwrap each ornament and place it in its honored place on the tree.  I hold the past in my hand with each one. Each one reveals its story to me.  They speak to me of the good times and the bad.  I remember that we kids couldn’t touch them, mom hung them all.  I remember the one that was my dad’s favorite. I remember when I was considered responsible enough to hang a few. I even remember the one my brother and I argued over to place on the tree. 

So here is the New Year and the memories are all off the tree and ready for their return to the box for their slumber until next year.  Soon they will be passed to another generation, I need to tell the history of them so they will still be honored.  Because the ornaments not only represent Christmas they represent our families history.