The Value of a Thing

I took down the Christmas tree yesterday. I have a system for doing it now - I take all of the ornaments off and put them on the cocktail table. I remove the lights and try to wind them around them themselves in an orderly, neat fashion that won't have me throwing them directly in the dumpster come Christmas 2020. Then I take the tree outside. Next, I bring the empty ornament boxes upstairs and fill them with the ornaments on the cocktail table. Then it all goes back into the crawl space.

In going through my process yesterday, I noticed a little tiny boot ornament that I've have since I was a kid. My brother and I used to have a little artificial tree in the basement rec room of our "Wonder Years" home in Camp Springs. It had those little multi-colored lights on it where each bulb was surrounded by a little plastic flower and cartoon character ornaments. Remember those? Anyway, we had the paint-by-numbers wooden figures and little Fred Flintstone and Snoopy ornaments all over the tree. It was a "kid's tree," not like the "real tree" that was in our living room. I still have a box of those ornaments and put a few of them on my tree every year.

I picked up that small gold boot and it took me back to that tree in our basement and 1970. I know when my mother bought all these oddball ornaments, she probably never suspected that they would be gracing the "real tree" at her daughter's home 50 years later. And I know she never guessed at that time the joy those Woolworth ornaments would bring me.

That boot probably cost about 10 cents. And I wouldn't take $1000 for it today. Ironic, isn't it?.