Ornaments

After Karen arrived home, we put the ornaments on the tree. May I say to my young readers (whoever one or two of you there are) that you ought to discretely date your ornaments. They will trigger more memories than most anything else; long after memories of this year's "must have" gifts have faded (Karen is always asking, "Do you remember what you got me in 1993? -- or whatever -- and of course I cannot, nor would I want to) the ornaments will bring back special moments. Like the paper ones I cut from Christmas cards when we were first married and had no money for ornaments; like the glittered styrofoam Christmons we made with the (Lutheran missionary) Schmidts the year after we both returned from Liberia; like the ones Grandma Settergren gave the girls, especially the elaborately decorated eggs (Grandma H wasn't into such frivolity); like the ones I cross-stitched for everyone the year we lived in Cambridge; like the ones we exchanged with our next door neighbor when the kids were little; like the ones we bought in central Europe during our grand Christmas tour of 1995. That brings me to this year's ornament. I decided we needed a Wooster keepsake, so over to the bookstore I went and this is what I found. Perfect for Christmas 2007 nostalgia.