This week, I decorated our Christmas tree. My husband carried the bins down from the attic, and I went to work.

We have a lot of meaningful Christmas ornaments. My mother was a big collector of ornaments, so I have lots of crystal and sterling ornaments. We have some lovely ornaments my husband’s family gave us. We have ornaments commemorating our first Christmas together and the birth of our daughter. We have lots of ornaments our daughter made in preschool and elementary school. And we have some silly ornaments we collected along the way.

When I was growing up, my favorite ornaments on our family tree were some ornaments that looked like the toys from the Island of Misfit Toys on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I know I brought those back after my mother died, but I’m having difficulty locating them. It’s not likely I will find them this year, but I hope to put my hands on them before next Christmas.

We do, however, have some fun ornaments from A Christmas Story…one that looks like the house from the movie, and another of the leg lamp and Ralphie. The ones that really made me smile, though, were two ornaments from the Nickelodeon show, iCarly. Our daughter loved the show when she was younger (and likely still does), and her very favorite characters were Carly and Sam. I don’t remember where I purchased them, but when she was a little girl, I found some Carly and Sam ornaments.

Back then, we were still doing the Elf on the Shelf thing, and our daughter loved the Elves (yes, more than one…we were overachievers) as much as she loved iCarly. She often wrote them notes…sometimes asking them questions about themselves…favorite foods, favorite TV shows, favorite sports, etc. And sometimes, the elves brought little gifts…very small gifts…but they generated a lot of excitement. One morning, she came downstairs to find the elves had brought her a Carly ornament from iCarly, and the next morning, she found a Sam ornament. Carly and Sam were the two main female characters from the show, and she thought they were hilarious. She adored them. I didn’t park her in front of the TV when she was really little, but when she was elementary school aged, I didn’t mind if she watched a few shows here and there. She loved iCarly so much, that she knew the title of each episode! In fact, I’m guessing she can still name each episode and give a brief synopsis.

All that is a long way of saying that yesterday, as I pulled ornaments out of the bin, I found the two cheap iCarly ornaments that generated so much excitement on that December morning eight or ten years ago. I hung them on the tree together…they’re pals, after all. Our daughter wasn’t home, but I took a picture of them and sent it to her, asking, “Recognize those ornaments?” She replied, “OMG! Yes!’ I couldn’t see her reaction, but I imagine she felt like she was six or eight years old again…just for that second. She likely remembered exactly how excited she was to receive them.

And you can bet your sweet bippy they will continue to be on our tree every year…right up there with all the sterling and crystal ornaments from my mother.

 

 

 

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