Heirloom Ornaments

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Lead icicles for Christmas trees were outlawed in the seventies because of worries that kids might eat them. Guess visions of sugar plums didn’t dance in their heads. The new plastic ones are a poor substitute; to me, they don’t have the same gravitas as they hang from branches. You put the lead ones on one by one. I’m going to pull down the double-hung attic stairs and rummage around to find the box they’re in and take them out to Lillian for her silver-topped fir tree. If you have heirloom ornaments, taking the tree down is a chance to remember parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who aren’t with us anymore. My Uncle Dickie wore a bow tie and handed out the presents every year at my grandmother’s house.