Memories are Made of This

Lately, I have been noticing a sort of revival regarding what is known these days as “vintage’ décor. As a child born in the early 60’s, items such as silver (aluminum) trees, rotating color wheels, three (and even up to six!) plastic electric candle lights with the old round- shaped bulbs, and large plastic Santa’s with a string attached to the back of them so that you could hang them up on windows and doors were considered the “new” fad. However, much like fashion, some of our more popular trends always manage to find their way back to us again … eventually (think mini skirt and bell-bottom jeans).

In any case, for me these so-called vintage items almost have as much of a connection to my childhood memories as do the actual events themselves. One of those memories is of helping my mother decorate the living room tree with her lovely ornaments and then waiting for her turn on the tree (yes, our tree actually rotated along with the wheel) and watching the colors on the tree change from the reflection of the wheel positioned perfectly on the floor beside it. It was, as far as I was concerned anyhow, truly beautiful!

Since my brother had not as of yet been born, he of course does not remember our old family tree of yesteryear. However, he does rather vividly remember our grandmother’s as she traditionally displayed her silver, half-sized aluminum tree every year at Christmas time up until her passing in 1992. 
 

Here are just a couple of pics from our family photo album of me opening up my presents from "Santa" with mom on Christmas morning ~ 1965 ...

(photo credit)

 

Though regrettably, as much as I loved these fond little tokens of my childhood, my mother had not kept very much from those days ~ in part because they had either fallen apart through time or had gotten destroyed in some way.  However, I have managed to utilize my mother’s old “hand-me-down” vintage pink glass balls (pictured above), which were hung on our tree every year, to decorate my own tree a few years ago ~ giving it somewhat of a “Victorian” look. I also added strings of small pink beads in place of tinsel and a few old white and pink colored ornaments and tiny bows …

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And so my dear friends, I suppose there really is something to be said for the concept of, “Everything that's old is new, and everything that's new is old.”