Ornament Stories: Day 1

For the month of December, I’ll be posting little stories about the ornaments on my Xmas tree. You can take the boy out of Christmas City, USA…

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My little sister’s birthday is today, December 1^st (Happy Birthday, Jess!). We are four and half years apart, so one’s full birthday is the other’s half. My early summer, end-of-school year birthday parties were usually the Showbiz Pizza kind, or video game fueled sleepovers with cake and newly unwrapped He-Man figures battling on the back porch. For my sister, a string of celebrations around the dining room table where she and her girlfriends would make crafts as part of the entertainment. I loved crafts, anything arts or arts adjacent that let me use my hands to make beautiful objects. So this older brother often joined in. One year we made cut-out cookie ornaments. I have two on my tree to this day: a star covered in gold glitter and a miniature stylized fir decorated with puffy paint. And they still smell of cinnamon and ginger, applesauce and glue.