Family Tree Gal

Family Tree Gal
Carolyn Calton welcomes YOU!

Motto

In every home, frame a family tree to help strengthen your posterity.

Welcome !

I am committed to acknowledging connections throughout the generations--past, present, and future--and igniting a sense of extraordinary family purpose in individuals in THIS generation. Let me help you discover your "roots" as well as strengthen the "branches" of your family tree. If you have had painful experiences in your family line, then this is the blog for you! In fact, all of us will see that as we strengthen ourselves, we strenthen our entire FAMILY TREE through the power of our positive influence.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. Day 3- Christmas Tree Ornaments




I’m participating in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.  Many thanks to Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers.com for hosting this each year.  It’s a lot of fun, and it links the Genealogy/Family History community each year in such a delightful, celebratory way.  The Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories (ACCM) gives you an opportunity to write about and share your family’s holiday history 24 different ways during 24 days in December! If you’d like to share in the fun, go to http://adventcalendar.geneabloggers.com/blog-prompts/

This is a great way to record part of your personal history.  You may want to use these prompts with your Personal Historian software, and you’ll be a step ahead in documenting your personal history and preserving it for your posterity. I also enjoy scanning pictures with my Flip-pal mobile scanner. and storing the pictures in collections with my Heritage Collector Suite software.  Since Christmas is coming, you may want to find these items under your tree this year. 

Here’s TODAY’s prompt and my thoughts about it.

December 3 – Christmas Tree Ornaments
 
Did your family have heirloom or cherished ornaments? Did you ever string popcorn and cranberries? Did your family or ancestors make Christmas ornaments?

Last Thursday, my mother-in-law, Liz Murphy, passed away.  Due to her passing, I remembered a box of antique ornaments she gave us many years ago.  I really wanted to know where we’d stored these treasures.  Funny, how they didn’t seem so much like treasures…until she passed!  I had a strong desire to find them and use them this year.

In my early married years (about 40 years ago), I strung cranberries and popcorn and made handmade ornaments (Santa Claus’ face on toilet paper rolls, etc.) since, as young-married people, there was no money to purchase ornaments.  We struggled to even buy a live tree
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My mother’s influence toward excellence and elegance, led me to buy beautiful ornaments of one or two colors for most of the rest of my life.  I loved turquoise ornaments (like she had on our flocked Christmas trees when growing up.  Mom liked to make her trees look like those in department stores.)  Three of my grandson’s hung the ornaments this year.  We have gold and red balls, a beaded garland of red, gold, green and white, some gold bows, some gold musical notes, a star and white lights.)

Decorating the tree is not one of MY favorite things to do.  (I love to decorate the rest of the house.)  Since my children are grown, I now sit remembering the fun days of my children decorating the tree, and my youngest daughter wearing the Christmas Tree skirt for the yearly “decorating the tree” picture.
Ah, those were the days. 
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For more family-centered gift-giving ideas, CLICK HERE.

If you have not already done so, and if you have a desire to positively impact the lives of others, consider JOINING THE QUEST and declare yourself to be one of TODAY’s ChangeMakers at my Family Tree Quest website.  You will receive a link to get your FREE 2-generation Family Tree chart. We are a worldwide group of people who use time-tested, principle centered solutions to strengthen ourselves and our families in THIS generation.  We recognize that our decisions in the present influence future generations.  We are willing to help each other, heal relationships and grow--in spite of challenges.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Although I do not receive a commission from Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers for writing these posts, I have taken great care to select many affiliates who I believe offer a great service to my web visitors. I make a small commission from sales in this post using these other hyperlinks.  This helps me to continue my work on the Internet. Thank you for using these links when making purchases. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”