Happy New Year! One of my resolutions is to write at least one blog post a week... I'm counting on all of you to hold me to it! I have a ton of holiday pictures, etc to share, but had this one post rolling around in my brain for weeks and I wanted to finally find time to sit down and write it tonight.
I woke up this morning bound and determined to get our Christmas tree down in the family room. It's one of four trees we put up this year, but the only "real" one. The needles have been dropping like mad, and with Dan home from work today, I had an extra set of hands to get the tree out of the house. Not surprisingly, my ADD kind of kicked in, and halfway through taking the tree down I started taking other stuff down, which lead to washing the kitchen floor, which lead to cleaning the bathroom, which lead to... well, 90% of my Christmas decorations are down and I am silently hoping for a "snow day" with the girls tomorrow where we can sit and snuggle and watch movies and enjoy a clean house and not have all this Christmas stuff staring at us, begging to be put away.
But I digress... a lot....
Back in November, my aunt called me and asked (with tears in her voice) if I was interested in "inheriting" my gramma's "Hershey" tree. You see, each year my gramma would send in for the annual Hershey ornament. She was so proud of those ornaments. I remember helping hang them on her tree and looking forward to seeing what the new one looked like each year. When my gramma passed away, my aunt took the ornaments and displayed them on an adorable little tree in her kitchen. This year, she was ready to pass them on.
I cleared a spot on the buffet in our kitchen and set up the tree. It was so fun to take each ornament out and find just the right spot on the tree. So many of those little guys brought back such great memories.
(Like my impromptu tree topper? Thank goodness for leftover Halloween candy!)
I miss my gramma every day, but feel her absence most profoundly during the holidays. Having the "Hershey" tree in my house and being able to share those ornaments with my girls this year was extra special.. and a tradition I am so excited to continue! And the best part? Most of the Hershey ornaments are little elf-like men, but check out my VERY FAVORITE Hershey ornament I found buried at the bottom of the box. Needless to say, she had a very prominent place right in the front:
