Mammy and Family and Ornaments

Jake's Mammy used to work at a Hallmark store, and every year she gave her grandchildren a new ornament for Christmas. She passed away two years ago, right before Christmas.

Admittedly, when I was 19, and Jake and I were decorating our first Christmas tree together, and I was pulling out the Bat Mobile and Shaquille O'Neal ornaments, my dreams of a gorgeous, ribbon-wrapped tree trimmed to the nines were dashed. I tolerated the ornaments that so perfectly represented a boy's childhood and threw every sort of color on a tree that I'd envisioned as having silver, gold, and red. And green, but only because of the tree.

Our collection grew. She and Meemaw (Jake's other grandma) and Jake's mom added for big life events, and all of a sudden they weren't just his, they were ours. Ornaments commemorating our wedding, our children, our lives.

And now I'm just sitting here in a puddly crying mess looking at our tree and not being able to imagine any other trimming meaning as much.

I'm looking at the ornament we got in 2006. Two days before Thanksgiving, we received the results of a blood test confirming we were six weeks and some change along with our first baby. We told Mammy the day before Thanksgiving at Pizza Hut in Holdenville; she'd taken all of her grandkids who were available out to lunch. We passed a napkin down to her with a little message breaking the news. She was so excited. She showed up the next morning with the napkin pinned to her lapel - proud as proud can be.


I ended up starting the miscarrying process on New Years Day when we were twelve weeks along. The ornament for 2006 is a hen sitting on an egg while knitting and a rooster reading a book on parenting. Her excitement, and the ornament tradition she started in her family that allowed us to keep a sweet reminder of a sweet time, that didn't quite turn out as planned, are so special to me.

This year, we decided to keep the tradition going with our girls. We took them to a Hallmark store and let them pick whatever ornament they wanted. We hung them up this morning before Jake took them to see The Nutcracker.




Someday when they're putting up their own trees, I want their significant other to open up a Frozen ornament that sings "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" and not quite know what to do with it. Or the teddy bear drinking hot cocoa that Cora picked. And then over the years, as the future S.O. is included in the tradition, I hope they find themselves all choked up looking through years of ornaments that were thoughtfully chosen and excitedly received. With the addition of popsicle stick reindeer and toilet paper roll Christmas tree ornaments, our tree is full of loving gestures and fond memories.

I couldn't love it more.
Jake picked out a family ornament this year. Yes, Batman, Shaq, AND Clark Griswold are on our tree.

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