We set our Christmas tree up on Monday afternoon. It is an artificial tree, but our ornaments bring it to life with years of memories.
Atop the tree is our angel. She is in gingham red with white wings, sporting brown braids and aways a smile.
Marnie and I had decorated our first tree 48 years ago and when the lights had been strung, the ornaments hung from the branches and the garland strung around the tree, we realized that we had forgotten a tree topper. Marnie went to her scraps of fabric and created the angel to go to the top of the tree. The angel was only planned for that first tree. It has become a tradition that this home-made angel graces our tree ever since.
Throughout their life in Fort Frances, our sons each year picked an ornament and added it to the tree. We put their name and year of purchase on the ornaments with the intention of giving them to them when they had their own home. As we unpacked the ornaments, we picked out Adam’s ornaments and they will be packaged up and sent to him and Meesun for their first tree in Barrie. As we unwrapped the ornaments and separated them, each brought a unique memory of Adam taking time to choose a new ornament.
One of our talented artists at the newspaper, Leanne Donaldson, had hand painted wooden ornaments. One was of the Foster family home in Markdale Ontario. Marnie’s mother passed this fall and one of the stops we made was to drive down the lane of the old home. Putting the ornament on the tree reminded us of the wonderful family times that old home in Markdale created.
In our travels across Canada, we collected pewter ornaments. One I received was from the McKenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum located in Queenston Ontario. I was president of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association at the time. The Fort Frances Times donated cases of wood type and Ludlow fonts to the museum that year. The newspaper was no longer using the machine or much lead and adding those pieces of the newspaper history to the museum was fun.
Another pewter ornament came from Peggy’s Cove and features the famous light house. We travelled with our two sons and my mother-in-law on that trip.
My father-in-law brought us ornaments from China. They are simple but elegant. There is an ornament that was handed out as a wedding favour on a New Year’s Eve wedding. It too is a wonderful keepsake. Mrs. Edith Newman – a friend of my mother’s – gave us a handmade ornament that she created when we invited her to our Christmas supper.
The tree and the ornaments rekindle memories. The ornaments have a story behind them and those memories are far more valuable than the ornaments themselves.
