Swapping

My sister and I are eight years apart. After asking God for a baby sister (yes, I was specific) each night at bedtime for over two years, it came true when I was in 2nd grade.

We did everything together. Even played together. (I have a suspicion that my playing with Barbies until I was nearly 12 years old had something to do with having a little sister. It extended my childhood just a little bit farther, and for that, I'm grateful.)

One year (I believe it was the year Dad was away), we decided to start exchanging ornaments. Mom and Dad had so many beautiful and storytelling ornaments decorating their tree, but it hit me one day that those were THEIR ornaments. What would happen when Emily and I moved out on our own? Even though that's hard to fathom when you're not even a teenager yet, it required some serious consideration.

Mom, of course, promised us that she'd give us some of their ornaments that were left over. We didn't blame her, though, when she didn't want to give up our "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments or ornaments that had extreme sentimental value. We had to come up with a plan of our own. After all, we didn't just want to grow up, move out, and purchase boxes of generic glass balls to hang on our branches. One shouldn't have to wait until kids come along to add sentiment to one's evergreen....

So, we devised a plan to buy one ornament a year for each other. The way we saw it, that would mean we'd have ten or twelve good years to exchange them....and when we were out on our own with our own trees, we'd have a good starting point.

So we did. And so much fun it was picking out a unique ornament every year. I would save up my allowance at the beginning to buy them....then later, when I got my first job, I used that money. Some years, I went for the whimsical....such as a plastic cat wound up in a string of colored Christmas lights. Other years, I went with a classic....a Santa or a sleigh. Other years, I felt elegant....like a hand-blown ball with sequins and beads. Emily varied the ornaments she gave to me, too, and thus our variety of decorations was born.

I wouldn't trade the world for the ornaments which hang on our tree that she gave me years ago. I look at them and remember opening each one. I sadly recall the last year we exchanged them, just a few years ago....realizing that we had to stop sometime. After all, we were both already out and on our own. Breaking a tradition is never easy.

Yet I have these tiny treasures to keep forever.