Christmas Tree Ornaments

My Special Ornaments:

My Grandmother's birthday was on Christmas eve so we always went over to her house for a Christmas eve birthday party, I  was always excited to go because I knew she give us kids a special ornament that night.
My Granny, this is what we called her, G for short, gave me my first Christmas ornament 45 years ago!

 Granny also started the same tradition with her great grandchildren “G.G” as they would call her. Granny, it seemed would always give us an ornament that would reflect something in our lives. They were always unique in their special way, she would always write the year on the bottom of the ornaments or on the box. Every year when I would hang them on my tree I would always look for the year and think, wow- I’ve had this one for a long time.

In 1990 I lost all of my special ornaments in a house fire. It really did not hit me until Christmas time came and I had no special ornaments to hang on my tree, no looking on the bottom to see what year I received it, no hearing my children say “wow, mom you were how old when GG gave you that one?”

Christmas eve came and off to Granny’s house for a birthday party, excited because after Granny opened her birthday gifts she would give us each a little box to open. I would be starting my collection all over again. I remember that year I received a dog ornament, a collie, that was the kind of dog I had at that time and my son received his “Babies 1st Christmas” ornament.

I moved out of state in 1994 and that first Christmas away from my family was hard, no Christmas eve at Granny’s house, but there was a little box that came in the mail that I could not open until Christmas eve.

Granny continued this tradition every year until about 1997 when she fell and broke her hip, she was never the same. Not soon after that she was diagnosed with dementia. My granny passed away in 2001.

I continued my grandmothers tradition with my children, giving them a special ornament on Christmas eve to hang on the tree. When my girls moved out on their own a few years ago, I would put their ornament in their stocking to open on Christmas day.

The other day when I was asking my children what they want for Christmas, my oldest daughter, now 25, said “ I really do not want anything for Christmas, Mom, just my stocking-- you know, my special ornament.”