Flashback!

A young friend told me recently that she is amazed at how everything in our house has a story to go with it. That's what I love about "things." Not so much the actual possession of things, but that most of the stuff around my house has history that is meaningful to me. Christmas ornaments on the tree really bring the stories. I love it when my kids come back home to help put the ornaments on the tree. I get the tree all ready, with the wretched job of stringing the lights all taken care of ahead of time. Spouse sits in a chair––waiting for his single role of plopping the worn angel (given to us by the boys' youth pastor) at the top of the tree––while I dig through unorganized boxes ("next year I'll organize them better") and hand out what needs to be hung on the tree. And while we decorate, the stories flow.

Some ornaments were homemade ... such as "vintage 1978" ... or that was the year I crocheted ornaments, or knitted them ... and the puffy quilted ones I made that mostly remain in the box because of their huge size ... or the painted wood ornaments from sometime in the late 80s ... and then the ones that hung on Spouse's childhood tree (those are really vintage) ... different ones gifted from friends ... and maybe most special, the ones we made from clothespins our "yellow" Christmas. Almost each and every one a "flashback" to something special in our lives.

It reminds me of a program I heard on the radio as a kid called The Listening Post. Stories read aloud, but the listening post would actually open each program with his crackly voice, "In my old wooden heart ... are stories." I like to personify our tree as proclaiming, "Tucked inside my green branches ... are many old stories..."