Eons ago my daughter won the New Hampshire State Spelling Bee and competed in the Scripps National Spelling bee in Washington, DC.
It’s fairly impossible to explain how proud her father and I were of her.
Her entire extended family took a trip to Washington DC for 4 days to watch her compete. Thrilling doesn’t begin to describe it. Back then I was a frequent patron of a paint-your-own-pottery store in my home town and to commemorate the event, I made this ornament:
Every year when I put it on the tree my daughter groans. Too bad, I always tell her. This was an event so profound in her parents’ lives that it has to be remembered every year.
She still groans, but at least she lets me put it up, hee hee.
Such a happy memory, just what an ornament should be.
Professions are easy to turn into Holiday ornaments. The other day I showed you one set of the nurse/doctor ones I’ve received over the years. Today is my retirement career.
You all know I retired from my job in 2015 when I got my first writing contract with The Wild Rose Press. The day I turned in my resignation was one of the happiest – and scariest – of my life. Happy because I was finally being given an opportunity to do what I loved, full-time. Scariest because…no income. The potential for income was there, but I knew it was going to take a few years ( read: several!) before I saw any substantial cash in the royalties department. I still can’t support myself to this day on what I make as a full-time writer each year, but it’s way better than when I first started out in 2015.
That year, for Christmas, I bought myself this ornament as a testament to my new career:
It’s perfect in so many ways, but mostly because it’s a. a typewriter, and b. pink.
LOL
I wish I had my own pink typewriter in real life. I have a writing friend who actually does. I’ll need to save up to get myself one, one of these days.
Do you believe in angels? I do and have since I was a child.
There’s something magical about believing in a being who is looking out for you from a distance. Everyone who knows me knows I love these celestial beings. And, because they also know I’m obsessed with tree ornaments, most of my friends have gifted me angel ornaments over the years. Here are just a few on the tree this year.
This one my girlfriend gave me several years ago. It’s a breast cancer fundraiser ornament.
I got this little lass in Ireland.
This one is made of glass and I wrap it in six sheets of paper each year when I store it because I don’t want anything to happen to it.
And of course, the Anna Lee angel that tops my tree that I’ve had for almost 30 years:
And that isn’t even all of them, kids.
Angels: they’re a good thing to have on your holiday tree.
Hubster and I met at a hospital where I was working as a nurse and he was interning. Yes, we are that quintessential Doctor/Nurse relationship older romance book lovers adored, heehee.
When my husband discovered my love ( not obsession!) of holiday ornaments, it stood to reason at some point we would get a few that espoused our professions.
We weren’t wrong.
One of my best work friends who had watched us all through our courting years and through our long-distance engagement, gave us these the year we got married.
My sister-in-law Mary gave Larry this one eons ago. I love it sosos much!!!
DO you have any profession-themed ornaments? I’ve given a glass blow-dryer to my hairstylist and one year to my manicurist I gave a tiny replica bottle of polish. Cute, you know??
Yesterday was about my human baby, today is all about my fur babies – present and past.
I was married about seven months when my husband came home and said he thought we should get a dog.
I agreed, so we searched the local papers and found a dog owner whose female black lab had recently given birth to twelve pups. She had one left – the runt of the litter – and she came home with us that day.
Ella may have been the last pup born but she was by no stretch of the imagination a “runt.” At one point she topped the scales at 120 pounds. This may have been my fault because once I was pregnant, she and I had MacDonald’s three times a week. I got a big mac and fries, she got a hamburger happy meal.
This ornament is from 1988, her very first Christmas with us. She lived until 12 years of age and I miss her still every day.
At one point when my daughter was six she decided she wanted a cat, so we brought a little stray from the Humane Society home with us and named her Felina Catina after a cat-character in a children’s book I wrote. My daughter made this of Felina’s first Christmas as part of our family.
I actually had a picture ornament for her, but it broke several years ago.
During Covid, Hubster and I decided – like about a billion other people – to adopt a new dog into our family. Let me tell you from experience that it’s very different having a puppy when you are in your 20s than when you are in your 60s. 12 pound Maple came to us three days shy of her 8 week birthday and we fell in love immediately. I mean, look at that face! 18 months old now she is still highly loved – but tipping the scales at close to 100 pounds, anxious and with a severe case of FOMO which dictates she be with us EVERY WAKING SECOND ( hahaha), this dog is no easy little pup any longer.
But we still love her to the moon and back!
Preserve the images of your fur babies on ornaments, kids. You’ll keep them with you forever.
Family and friends are two of the most important factors that keep me sane. Admittedly, I don’t have very many close friends and all my family comes to me from my husband, but the people I do hold close I cherish, dearly.
A few years ago one of my good girlfriends gave each of us a special ornament that sits in the very front, top of my tree every year.
You may not know all of us individually, but this ornament is a pretty good depiction of what we look like ( only my hair was longer!)
If the past 20 months have taught us anything it should be that we must cherish those people nearest and dearest to us. You have no idea what tomorrow may bring – loss of life from a ridiculous virus being the most unpredictable. My heart simply aches for all those who have died from this pandemic and those who never go to hold them and say goodbye or tell them how much they meant before they did.
Tell the people who mean the most to you that you love them – EVERY SINGLE DAY and then show it in as many ways as you can.
And if you can, buy them an ornament like this one, hee hee
Peggy Jaeger, Author 