Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Even though we’re buying smaller and smaller Christmas trees each year and you’d think I wouldn’t be able to cram on decades’ worth of ornaments, I hate to leave anything out.

There’s a cross-stitched ornament that John made from a kit when he was four. Numerous decorations were created by my husband’s Aunt Mae, who had an active life past age 100 and made knitted, crocheted, and sequined ornaments that she kept secret as she worked on them during the year.

There are many items made in the Crafts for Christmas workshops at church, which encourages children to make, rather than buy, presents to give. Most were the work of John and Suzanne in the 1980s. Others were made by their own children in pre-Covid church workshops. The wide range of workshop items include everything from Christmas doorknob covers to reindeer ornaments constructed of clothespins.

I love looking at the tiny crocheted figures from China that I found in a shop at Niagara on the Lake when Suzanne was two. They remind me of our time at the Shaw Festival in Canada. My husband and I traded off babysitting so he could see a play and I could laugh myself silly at a performance by the concert comedienne Anna Russell.

I also have an origami star in shiny green paper from someone in an Esperanto group that used to meet monthly at my house.

A little baseball ornament and a tiny box of fishing tackle remind me of early interests of John, who now coaches baseball and teaches kids in the family to fish.

Really far back in time, I acquired a small Christmas stocking for one of my dolls — that goes on the tree, too.

There’s a horse-saddle ornament, a memento from a vacation that the Clymers took out West. And I still hang up a large glass ball from the Lillian Vernon surprise box. I painted “1980” on it back then.

I also hang up quotations looped with a green ribbon, an idea my husband got on a business trip to Singapore, where they hang sayings outdoors.

The clunky red-paint-and-sparkles thing you see below is something I made from an egg carton years ago. Recently married, I thought it would be fun to take Crafts for Christmas at the local adult ed after work while my husband took a different class. Can’t imagine how I stayed awake in those days!

Please be sure to notice that hanging near a bear ornament is something white that has the same shape. That is what my husband made for a three-year-old John, who asked him to make another bear. Though not usually into crafts, the guy did his best, and I like seeing his white cardboard bear every year.