Christmas Tree Ornament

This handmade Christmas tree ornament uses up extra buttons. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Christmas Tree Ornament

Most of us have them, jars of buttons we have cut off from blouses and shirts we could no longer wear. I know I do, and did several years ago when a friend stopped in with her two small children. She was moving across country and had most of her belongings in the back of her car. She was down in her luck and trying to put a brave face on for her daughters.

I was only too happy to give her a safe haven, even for just a few days. We spent most of the time giving her daughters a fun Christmas; which is where this ornament comes in.

I didn’t have much in craft materials in the house but we decided we wanted to make Christmas ornaments anyway. These are actual popsicle sticks I had saved to use as plant markers. One of the girls found the jars of buttons and I knew where i stored green and brown paint. I keep a small plastic container full of small paint jars and brushes so that I can easily decorate when I need to.

My plastic container of small paints and paint brushes. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Sitting around my butcher block kitchen island covered in newspapers, we glued, then painted, then glued buttons on. We talked. Some of us were silly, and not necessarily the two little ones. The girls loved the hot chocolate with marshmallows. I could see Mom starting to relax.

She didn’t have money for gifts so the girls made these ornaments for their family members. We cut cat faces out of cardboard and added them to the top of the tree ornament instead of a star. They had left their pet cat behind; this was a wish that they would get another one. If you haven’t lived with a cat through holiday Christmas tree climbing, you are missing quite the adventure.

Another tree had a boot on it for a grandfather, and yet another one had a flower one of the girls cut out of one of my gardening magazines. We decided the tree topper on the Christmas tree tree ornaments were things they wished Santa would bring their relatives.

They signed their names and put a date on the back. Mom and I hand wrote little cards for each person explaining the wish expressed at the top of the ornament. I ended up with one of the ornaments with a star on top.

My friend went on to bigger and better things, and husbands. Her daughters are now married with their own children and cats I think of them when I find this simple ornament. It may not look much but to me it represents life. The tree of life. And hope that things would get better.

It still does today.

Charlotte