December Photo Project 12/8

The December Photo Project is sponsored by Rebecca at View From the Prairie Box

 

I took many pictures today of all of my favorite ornaments on our tree.  I'd like to do a post about our ornaments sometime.

 

But today for DPP, I want to post a memory.

 

The year that my youngest sister, Laura was born, my Ami (grandma) decided to do something special with my siblings and me for Christmas (and probably just to give my mom a break!)

I still remember the warmth of the kitchen, how yummy it smelled while Ami let 5 year old Jon, 3 year old Kate, and 7 year old me help measure out the spices, our squeals of glee as we mixed the gingerbread dough with our fingers.  Ami could lift us back then.  She had Jon and Kate sit on the kitchen counter.  I was tall enough to stir while standing--wearing my pink Jellies and Mom's most matronly apron.  We rolled the dough out together, singing Christmas carols and anticipating our walk around the festively lit neighborhood that evening with Papa Chuck.  Papa Chuck didn't spend much time in the kitchen; he only came in to wash his hands after working on the engine of our minivan or playing outside with our dalmatian.  He would wash his hands and pat them dry on Ami's bottom.  They'd laugh and kiss, he'd wink at us, and then go out to the living room to watch closed-captioned news.

Ami handed us each a cookie cutter, and we took turns cutting shapes out of the gingerbread.  The next day, after the pieces had dried completely (I'm sure she baked them, too), Ami brought out some red yarn with golden sparkles in it, and helped us string each them so that we could hang them from the tree. 

Our entire home smelled of the warmth of gingerbread that first Christmas! 

Each year after that, as we opened boxes of ornaments to put on the tree, we'd find that our collection of gingerbread ornaments had gotten smaller and smaller.  Some had broken, some had been half eaten by Laura, some had purely crumbled into powder.  I don't know how this one has lasted so long.

The year that Jesse and I were engaged, Dad designated a special box just for my ornaments.  After Christmas, he carefully packaged them all in my box to go with me to our new home.  As Jesse and I decorated our first Christmas tree together in 2008, I found this single star-shaped gingerbread ornament resting between sheets of tissue paper.

I have many ornaments.  Beautiful ones, expensive ones, ones I'll treasure forever. 

But none of them bring breaths of gingerbread-scented laughter and gold-tinted memories like this little star.