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"Don&amp;#039;t you just love December? I find myself looking forward to so many wonderful moments: smelling freshly cut evergreens, enjoying holiday displays (perfect for window shopping!), and the feeling of peace that accompanies the first snowfall. But the tradition that means the most to me, the one I look forward to all year, comes when I remove the big brown boxes from storage and slowly unwrap the Christmas ornaments to hang on our tree. Some are barely holding on for dear life, but I&amp;#039;d never replace my ragtag bunch of ornaments for a fancier set of decorations. Each one brings back so many vivid memories. There&amp;#039;s the royal blue ball that&amp;#039;s survived 40-something Christmases\u2014a simple drugstore purchase made priceless by my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Lowrey, who wrote the names of all her students in silver glitter and presented them to us as a holiday memento. And there are the ornaments handed down to me by my parents a few years ago, when putting up a tree became too much for them: a well-dressed toy soldier and a slender peacock with a tail of soft white bristles that clips on a branch. My very favorite of all is a fireplace, decorated with acrylic paint, and four tiny stockings bearing the names Katie, Jay, Ellie and Carrie. My husband, Jay, and I bought it together at a holiday fair one year, and when I see it now, it makes me long for the Christmases we spent together as a family before he died of colon cancer in January of 1998. So many ornaments, so many stories. The nutcrackers are my 21-year-old daughter Ellie&amp;#039;s favorite. We also have tiny replicas of the cast of the Wizard of Oz, one of my 16-year-old Carrie&amp;#039;s childhood obsessions (although she was terrified of the flying monkeys). There are baubles I purchased on vacation, and ones that my daughters and I couldn&amp;#039;t resist as we spent the day poking around shops in small towns. Every time the girls or I unwrap an ornament and hold it up, saying &amp;quot;Remember this one?&amp;quot; I feel a combination of delight and wistfulness. Last year our tree came crashing down, a casualty of a stand not sturdy enough for the towering Douglas fir. We jumped into action and were quickly able to prop it up again\u2014but a few of our favorite ornaments had hit the floor. Some needed gluing, yet others remained miraculously intact. I&amp;#039;ll miss the ones that became tiny shards of colored glass in the dustpan, but over time we&amp;#039;ll add new ones\u2014with new memories attached\u2014to make up for them. Every Christmas, the living history of our tree helps me remember what we&amp;#039;ve had and cherish what is still with us. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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