Memory Tree

Eliza looks at our tree crowded with ornaments, many chipped and broken, and comments: “Some people curate their trees.”

     But how can I pitch the ornaments from my childhood? The ones Mom made with my kids? Nathan’s birds he drew on cardboard when he was four? The crumbling baked-dough fish? Every ornament my kids made at school and brought home to me so proudly? Or the hanging card inscribed by my mother-in-law: “Xmas 2001, love from Nanny & Grandpa”? She would die of a heart attack just after New Year’s.

     I tell Eliza: “It's not about art. It's about memories.”

Inspired by the season. Photo by Nancy.