Christmas Season Ends

Sunday the tree comes down. A new year has begun. My tree is an artificial that is almost forty years old. It has been with me when I lived on Albany Street in Chicago, two addresses in Round Lake Beach, an adress in Wisconsin, and two adresses here in Arizona. Travels and memories. In that time family members and dogs passed away. The tree is a link to them and to former Christmases past. Hallmark started making dated ornaments and ornaments that are in a series with new ones added each year. I purchased a reindeer in a half price sale in July of 1977 in the Hallmark store on Main Street in Antioch. We have collected all the rocking horses and all the ornaments in the house series. The first ornament in a series are always worth the most, but most people buy the ornaments to keep. I would never sell them. Many of the ornaments aquired have stories, especially the oldest. The reindeer, the downhill sled, the bell with the mouse on it are some of my favorites. So are the homemade ornaments the kids made in school. They hang proudly and are the most precious of all. Tom, Jill, and I purchased many ornaments from the Ben Franklin store in Antioch. There are two ornaments on my tree that are from my childhood and hung on our tree on Artesian Street in Chicago. Under this old tree my children got up very early, many a Christmas morning, to open the gifts Santa left. It is sad to take the tree down and box up the ornaments, but is gives me something to look forward to next year, and someday the ornaments will belong to my children and their children. Today I will make blackeye peas, a New Year's tradition my mom and dad enjoyed.