Twelve Traditions of Christmas - Part 9

THE HANGING OF THE GLOCKENSPIEL.   I'm pretty sure this tradition will not transcend the years through the next generation, but you never know.  When we moved out of New Ulm, dear friends gave us a beautiful hand-painted glass ornament that came in its own box.  Pretty schnazzy, if you ask me.  The paintings on the ornament depict the famous New Ulm glockenspiel and some random Christmassy people. It seemed so delicate and precious that we (some of the more controlling members of our little family group) decided that it would be DANGEROUS to put it on the tree too soon - after all, it wouldn't take much to knock it off the tree and break it.   The consensus was that we would keep it in its cushioned box until Christmas Eve, at which time, the Keeper of the Ornament, would ceremoniously put it on the tree.

Keeper of the Ornament

This all went rather well until a couple years ago when I decided that it was a shame to keep it under wraps until December 24th, so I bought an ornament hanging doo-hickey and put it on that as a place to display it until the proper time for its promotion to the tree.  Alas, someone else came along and wanting to look at it more closely, removed it from the hanger and promptly dropped it, breaking the bottom of the ornament into several pieces of various sizes.  All seemed lost at the moment and we started to go through the five stages of grieving.  However, we never got past denial.  Wait a minute - isn't this just the kind of thing that super glue was invented for?  We meticulously picked up every fragment and began the arduous task of putting Humpty Dumpty together again.  I am proud to tell you that today, we are still able to hang that fine and beautiful ornament on the tree where it brings glory to the branch on which it hangs. If you're looking at it head-on and the lights are low, it looks just as it should. If you get curious and pick the thing up, you'll see all the cracks and you may notice that it has a hole at the bottom where we were unable to make all the pieces fit.  Don't do that - it's better to have the illusion.