First of all, Happy New Year! I hope it brings you health, happiness, and prosperity! (Well, we can always hope, right?)

Every year I make a few ‘resolutions’ that eventually get dropped because they don’t fit my lifestyle. I realise that I’m supposed to change my lifestyle to fit the resolutions… or at least, that’s how it’s meant to work. I don’t feel compelled to share them, particularly. They won’t be around for very long anyway. If I manage to finish my ongoing projects (some of which have been ongoing for a very long time), and meet my writing goals, I’ll feel like I’ve come out ahead.

I was putting away the Christmas decorations the other day, and it struck me that my Christmas tree is a timeline. Each ornament has a history.

I still have the very first Christmas ornament that was ‘mine’, specifically; it was a gift from my aunt when I was—I don’t know—eight? There are the quilled-paper ornaments that my sister made when we were in high school. The handful that I ‘inherited’ from a college roommate when he graduated. Glitter-frosted pinecones that my children made in nursery school. A set of antique glass and crystal ones that I suspect belonged to a friend’s mum. And some odd little gold-painted seed pods that he made for me (they look really good with the pinecones). Various ones that my own mother has given me over the years. Ornaments I’ve bought in London, Virgin Gorda, York, Portsmouth, and Hyde Park, NY. And the ones my husband and I bought together when we were newlyweds. Each one evokes a memory of a person, a place, or a particular time in my life.

I wonder if everyone has a Christmas-tree timeline? Perhaps I should do a photo essay of the ones that have a particularly specific history. Something to tuck into one of the boxes for my children to find when I’m gone.

I guess that will be a project for next December.