Welch Whirl

Christmas Memories from a Garage SaleI have been thinking about Christmas since summer time. I couldn't help it. My neighbor was having a garage sale where I purchased a Christmas tree, ornaments and lights for Shane and his room mates all for just $5. What a steal of a deal and I figured college kids could care less where a Christmas tree came from. In fact, knowing the tree is from a garage sale is what makes the tree cooler in the eyes of a college student. The cheaper the better right?

Later that same week an elementary school that was closing down was selling everything from globes to chalks boards. I know what you are thinking. Why the heck is Sharalee going to yard sales? Good question. I have no idea. I dislike looking at other people's junk when it is in their house, but for some reason I am mesmorized when junk is displayed on a lawn. Maybe, just maybe, I will run across some neat treasure. (Everyone knows I like to have garage sales more than I like to visit garage sales. I only went to these two the whole summer. I don't frequent other people's garage sales, unless looking for something in particular, I promise. I am my mother's daughter, I try to dejunk. Although my husband would disagree according to what is stored in our crawl space.)

Anyway, I bought a huge container of Christmas ornaments and lights at the school yard sale thinking that I would give them to Shane also. The way the garage sale went was that you grabbed a box and went to check out, regardless of what items were in your box. Once I was home I decided to see what I really had bought and was delighted to discover that I bought the perfect Christmas ornaments for Wiley and all of the ornaments still had the price tags on them (I don't know why they weren't used but I'm glad to have found them). As luck would have it the ornaments were stuffed penguins, (Wiley's favorite animal) stuffed birds, stuffed snowmen, all soft ornaments perfect for Wiley's tree.

We have a small Charlie Brown like Christmas tree that we put in Wiley's room. Shortly after Thanksgiving I laid out all the new ornaments and had Wiley decorate his very own tree. One of my favorite Christmas memories was laying underneath the Christmas tree and looking up at the lights and dreaming of magic things to come. So just after decorating the tree the first thing we did was spend the afternoon laying under his tree looking up into the lights and making up stories about penguins.

What are your favorite memories of Christmas?