Advent Calendar - Ornaments

Geneabloggers is once again hosting the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories encouraging family historians to write about their holiday traditions.

I don’t have any ornaments that came over on the Mayflower.  None from a Polish grandmother who escaped during the war. None from the Holy Lands. Not even an angel made of macaroni and glitter. Truthfully, my most treasured ornaments are younger than I am.  Some were my Grandma Davis’s ornaments and some were my mother’s.  There is nothing special about the ornaments.  They probably came from a five and dime store, maybe Roses, Grants, or Woolworths.  But they’re glass.  And fragile.  And still carry the snow that was sprayed from a can so many Christmases ago.

I put them on the tree last year, but they just got lost among the 100s of ornaments that I’ve amassed over the years.  Now I display them in a bowl where they can be enjoyed up close.  It’s fun to feel the roughness of faux snow. 

While my family did not craft homemade ornaments when I was growing up, I went through a “country Christmas” phase when I made lots of ornaments.  Christmas 1975, I invited my college roommate Ruth and a lovely widow named Mrs. Cooper who lived in the apartment above us to join me in a popcorn-stringing party. 

That's me by the window.  Mrs. Cooper is to my left.
Ruth is to her left.  I can't remember the young girl's name.
I imagine Ruth was babysitting for one of the
college professors.

We strung popcorn and cranberries probably onto fishing line.  It was lots of fun and the popcorn strings added the right touch to my country tree.

But as the holiday wore on, the cranberries created quite a mess.  That was the end of my popcorn stringing days.