OUR LONG LOST CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Isn't this the prettiest little Christmas Angel? It's a lost tree topper that my brother Darrell brings up every now and then.

I wish I'd worked on this story sooner, since I'm late for Christmas '23, but now I guess I'm early for Christmas '24. I'll drop this Blog now, since I could be dead by December.

When I started searching the Internet for an image that resides only in my head, I did a deep dive down the rabbit hole. The memories! Of course when you type "Vintage" anything in the bar, be prepared to be amazed. The memory of a beautiful blue Christmas Angel from our childhood nudges Darrell and me every once in a while. I searched Etsy, eBay, Yahoo and god knows how many sites, but as soon as this one popped up, I cried "Eureka!!" And Darrell agreed, if this isn't it, it's too damn close to call.

Does she check off all the boxes?

Made of heavy molded plastic? Yes.

Lights up? Why yes, that's what the cord is for...........

10"-11" tall? Perfect!

She is definitely vintage, at approximately 60 years of age. (Ahem) This pretty little angel was as important as it gets in the Christmases of my childhood; she was always placed on the tree. No one would know where she came from, and no one knows where she went.

We moved into our new house in December 2001, just before Christmas, so it was a frantic scramble to get a tree of any kind up! Everything was so new and exciting! My boys dragged the Christmas boxes out of the tiny cubby hole in the upstairs of the old house and moved them over to the new house. They were probably some of the last things to be removed. Even then I had an artificial tree to put together. What we used for a topper that year escapes me, but it wasn't this little darling. And then by the next year, when the old house had been removed and turned into a summer cottage for an Ontario family, she was a long gone memory.

But Darrell and I hadn't forgotten her. And then we just surmised that she somehow got stuck somewhere in the walls of the old house and was gone forever. We've never seen one like her before or since.

I clearly remember over the years every once in a while at Christmas, I would take a notion that I wanted something new and flashy for the tree, something a little more modern. Those years the angel would stay in her box, relegated to the hidey-hole upstairs.

Until she stayed up there. Forever.

Some flimsy tin sparkly thing would adorn the tree, gaudy and cheap. How shallow we can be around Christmastime, it seems.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I can't help but be sorry that I didn't appreciate the Angel tree topper the way I should have. And now, she's irreplaceable. Well, for $165.00 on eBay, she's not exactly priceless, but do I dare? Or just leave it be, as a childhood memory.......

And speaking of lost things, St. Anthony must be a busy soul indeed. A couple of years ago Jamie and I realized that a set of our car keys was missing. It was quite casual, one day I mentioned to Jamie, "Do you have the other set of car keys in a coat pocket somewhere? I haven't seen them."

And he responded, "Never noticed. Must be in one of my coats." So we started to look. And before you state the obvious, this question makes my hair hurt.........because every single person asked the same question.......

"Where did you see them last?"

Well, if I knew that, they wouldn't be lost. Christ. It's like asking when is the last time you changed a diaper. Well, I don't remember, I didn't realize it was the last time. Who would know the answer to that?? I don't know where I saw them last!!!

So the hunt was on. Winter coats. Summer jackets. Down the leather seat cushions on our furniture. In the car. In the truck. In the sheds. In old purses. In the fridge, I'm not kidding.

We checked in every store in Souris where one or both of us had been. Post Office lost and found, the works. We offered a fresh crisp $50.00 bill to which ever one of our kids/grandkids could produce that jangly set of keys. No luck. And they searched everywhere. Luckily, if it's lucky at all, it wasn't the main set of keys, which contains the house key, safety deposit box key, automatic car start fob, etc. It was the basic second key. I became like a cat shitting razor blades, I never let the key out of my hands. I was vigilant. Nova gets out of the car, keys come out of the car. Every. Single. Time.

And you know, we never found them. And as I like to say once in a while, they aren't lost, we just don't know where they are. So last fall we made an appointment with Charlottetown Toyota and they made a second set for us. An expensive lesson, at $120.00 later. But it's okay, as I've relaxed a little bit as far as the keys go now.

And while I'm on it, what about socks? It seems quite common for a sock to go missing, and it's too trivial to bother St. Anthony with. So what to do with a bunch of orphan socks? Well, make them last longer by just grabbing two of whatever is left and just wear the damn things. It used to be quite embarrassing to have to wear socks that didn't match. Now it's a badge of honor. Everybody's doing it! I'll bet even Justin Trudeau , with his sense of style, has odd socks!

I was a homemaker for a lot of years, and a housekeeper at two establishments over my career, and I can proudly state that I lost nothing. Not a pillow case. Not a dish towel. Not a day's work. And certainly not a sock. Socks are cheap admittedly and wear out fast. But I looked after my family of six, and that's a lot of socks, and I'll bet not one of my kids ever searched for a lost one. I don't get it. They go in the washer. They come out of the washer. They go in the dryer. They come out of the dryer. If you're hanging a wash outside, you take particular pride in matching the pairs and hanging them together. Then you bundle each pair as it come in off the line. Presto! Matched pairs of socks.

But not this last 8 or 10 years. Mismatched socks are a thing! My grandkids are famous for it. Is it popular in the schools? Or is it just among my offspring. How embarrassing this Blog will be if no one else knows what I'm talking about.

Send me a comment on any of these situations, if they apply to you.

Solutions? Tips or hints?

We're all in this together.........unlike socks.......