Are you a Scrapper?
Okay, How many of you are scrapbookers? I remember when the scrapbooking craze started in the 1990’s. I was invited to a scrapbook party through a neighbor. We sat around the kitchen table and created a magnificent photo collage of memories.
My page was comprised of photos and memorabilia from my recent trip to the Holy Land. It was the best artwork ever completed on a piece of paper. Just kidding! However, I really like the way the scrapbook page turned out.
I was convinced I could sort through all of my photos and put together multipul volumes of beautifully displayed memories. That was in 1999. Today in 2007, I have yet to paste a single photo into a scrapbook. I can’t even manage to jump into the digiscrapper world.
You would think a computer freak like me would be all over digital scrapbooking. I am not motivated. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know the reason.
I have failed as a mom and a wife. Our family wont have memories neatly tucked away in volumes for my grandkids to cherish. Do grandkids cherish scrapbooks? Well anyway, I am feeling pretty bad because of this annoying character flaw.
That is until November 23rd of this year.
The Friday following Thanksgiving my daughter and I put up our tree. Yes, I am a Christmas maniac. I can’t wait to decorate, buy gifts, and write cards. I started listening to my Christmas CD’s at the beginning of November. I have great Christmas music. There are not enough weeks in the season to listen to the fantastic praise music written for the newborn King. I digress…
This year it dawned on me that our Christmas tree is our scrapbook. Putting up the tree is a trip down memory lane. My daughter and I, sometime Dad joins in, carefully take each ornament from the various boxes pulled from the attic. We unwrap the fragile keepsakes one at a time to reveal a hidden treasure. It is a story. A memory from our many years of living on this earth.
Each year we hang on the tree an old, almost crumbling, heart-shaped ornament made from cinnamon and apples sauce. This ornament was hand crafted by my mother almost 25 years ago. She carefully glued on a red flower. My son carefully took a bit out of it when he was five because it smelled so good. My son is 25 years old this Christmas. He’s my Christmas baby. That’s a different story for another day.
Our tree is adorned with precious memories, our heritage. We talk through each of the stories about the ornament. Mostly we relive those times of joy and rich blessings given to us by the Father.
Ornaments hail from all over the globe. This year we added an ornament from Yellowstone National Park. We have ornaments that are exquisite. They sport stories of our trip to the White House and time spent in exotic locations.
However, the most precious ornaments we own were made by the tiny hands of my children. Through the years these precious mementos are carefully positioned on our tree. A wise Sunday school teacher, years ago, knew the intrinsic value of a homemade ornament.
The most valuable ornament on my tree today is made of paper and a plastic figure that probably cost 5¢. It is wrapped in swaddling clothes. 
This is our baby Jesus who was lovingly placed on our tree by my oldest child when he was five. I have one other ornament just as special. It is a peanut baby, laying in a bed of straw, hand-made by my daughter also when she was very young.
The stories are many and each year we look forward to reliving these memories. As I decorated the tree this year I realized two things. I am a scrapper after all. I may not be conventional but there are memories that live on and come to life again at Christmas time.
I also realized that baby Jesus is the most valuable treasure I have. His legacy is a legacy of love, forgiveness, and hope. Every year as I carefully place family memories on our tree, a baby who was born in a stable overwhelms me.
Tell me about some of the holiday treasures you store in your heart. How does baby Jesus overwhelm you?
Amen, this is very beautiful my friend.
What a wonderful article! The power of our memories is so strong. Our family does an ornament exchange with grandparents, aunts, and uncles, so each year we get excited at the new additions. Since we live so far away from our family, it makes us think fondly of them every day we look at the tree.
I don’t mean to sound like an advertisement, but I recently wrote an article for the Gaithers’ Homecoming magazine about scrapbooking and why memory preservation is important. Gloria herself also wrote about memories and interviewed Amy Grant about Mosaic. If you are interested in this topic, I would recommend the Nov/Dec 2007 issue.
What a great way to share memories. I still have ornaments I made when I was five and my kids think that’s pretty amazing. I also have passed on my doll bed set and this Christmas my dollhouse (filled with tiny furniture I made myself!). It’s been pure pleasure to pass on happy memories to my girls.
I feel the same way about our Christmas tree! Beautiful story!!!
Lynn, I love this article. You truly are a scrapper. I’m not organized enough to be a scrapper but I do enjoy the walks down memory lane with my family during the Christmas season. I agree with you, it is a form of scrapbooking.
I am not a scrapper,, just because I have tooooooooooo many hobbies as it is…… Lost most of my pictures in a fire in 1994…. all the pictures of my boys in their childhood years…… sooo I just never did get into the scrapping thing….. the boys are grown and gone and not grandchildren to walk down that memory lane with.. BUT one son lives here and I have given him all the memory things for his tree……… He enjoys putting them on his tree each year…..(maybe one day he will have some little ones to share those memories with)
Merry Christmas
That really is a form of scrapbooking. I think re-living the memories year after year are the best part of decorating for Christmas. Perhaps to ensure your children don’t forget the stories that go with each ornament, and can pass them on to their children, creating a memory storybook, with a picture of each ornament and the story that goes with it would be nice.
Lynn…I never thought about my tree being a scrapbook of my life…but it truly is! And yes—-girl I join you in listening to Christmas songs in November!!! AND putting my tree up Thanksgiving weekend!!! This is the neatest post! I was blessed!
Have an awesome weekend!
P.S.–my anti-spam word is Jesus….now if that don’t beat all!
I do scrapbooking… and you are right.. Christmas is just like that… never thought about it…
I’m with you, my children’s ornaments are my favorite…touched by tiny hands and tiny hearts…with BIG love… Just like Baby Jesus
love ya