A Trip Without Leaving Home!

Obviously a school project! One of my favorites.

I had to hang up my “Jetsy” moniker for a couple of months and actually do some work!  That’s why I have been pretty quiet lately.  I haven’t been anywhere, unless you count Santa Isabel last Saturday.

I did, however, take a different kind of trip – one down Memory Lane – as I put up my Christmas tree last weekend.

Here’s my tree: It’s in a new place this year too.

My Christmas tree is decorated with ornaments I have collected over the 30 years I have been married.  As I put them on the tree I always think back to when I got each one, the occasion, the reason, the person.  I even think of the other ornaments I got at the same time and how I miss the ones that have been lost or broken.

Here are just a few:

These little wooden ornaments were purchased one of the first years we were married.  We were still living in Brooklyn then, and since we were traveling for Christmas (either to Puerto Rico to see Gerry’s family or to Marco, FL to see mine – that I can’t remember), rather than buy a tree, we got all these white branches and stuck them in a big vase.  These were the decorations for the “alternative” tree!

The first Christmas I spent in Puerto Rico, I thought my tree should make some sort of “nod” to our tropical environs, so I found a whole series of tropical fish, both wood and bamboo.

Friends have made ornaments for me (when your birthday falls a week before Christmas it is an easy call!).  Of course, I have ornaments my boys made at school…and ones they made at home!

Last year, when we were making “Boricua Santas” and “Reyes” out of corks to sell through Isla, I made a series of place cards for the Christmas table that found their way onto the tree this year. (Can you guess who each of these is supposed to be?)

But the happiest discovery I made this year – and it was just by chance – but it did provide the impetus for this blog post…was finding the ornaments we purchased in France 11 years ago to celebrate our Euro-Year Christmas!

Of all my trips, this yearly trip down memory lane is clearly one of the most enjoyable!