Packing up holiday decorations is bittersweet! We always enjoy having our home decorated with holiday treasures... it was especially exciting this year because Katie & my Mom came for a visit over my birthday weekend... they both oohed & aahed over the tree, ornaments, lights, and miniature houses!
Even though the majority of our decorations are my Santa collection & JPE's holiday-lit houses... we always display these two items as remembrances of my dad and JPE's mom.
Before my dad moved to an Alzheimer's care facility, he would spend an occasional day at care facility while my mom ran errands. This snowflake ornament is a treasured memory from one of his craft-days!
The basket of ornaments were created by JPE's mom. Although I knew her for only five years before she passed, I quickly learned how much she loved decorating for the holidays. Her grown children & grandkids meant the world to her, and it pleases me to have her hand-crafted ornaments to put out at Christmas.
A few weeks ago, we had some friends over for dinner! they'd never been to our house, so we gave them a "peek" at condo living. At the end of a fabulous dinner (created by JPE), Cindy said, "your house is filled with treasures that have stories or memories attached to them. It creates such a cozy feeling!"
What a nice reflection! we don't keep much that is NOT MEANINGFUL to us. Living small, we have to rotate our treasures... but, we never grow tired of seeing them from a new perspective each time they appear in our decor.
