The entire family was decorating the Christmas Tree and the kids were looking over all the ornaments and sharing stories about the memories behind each one. Each year we try to get a new ornament for the kids and they always seem to enjoy that. They were talking about the ornaments they made in preschool and during grade school and with each ornament they pulled from the box they would mention something they remembered about when they made the ornament or something special about that particular Christmas. Wendy and I just kept working on getting the decorations out as we each listened to the kids talk about special memories. Carissa was recalling each Barbie ornament and she was going through them year by year. Tyler was getting an ornament out for each of us and asking which ornament we wanted to put on the tree first. They all know that there is one particular ornament that is special to me. It's an ornament that I made in second grade back in 1976. Yep, the ornament is 35 years old!
Many years ago when I moved into my own apartment, after graduating from college, my Mom gave me a box of memorable stuff and that box included several Christmas ornaments from my youth and it included the little pale green ornament from 2nd grade that had my name on it and the year 1976 in dark green paint . I don't know why this one was so special to me but it was, and the kids knew that. That ornament was on every tree I've had for the past 35 years.
When we were decorating Tyler carefully took that ornament out and set it aside for me to put on the tree. He found several other ornaments for me as well and kindly brought them all to the fireplace mantel so I could put them on the tree. He brought them to the fireplace mantel because I was working on the tree and he wanted the ornaments to be closer to me. That's when it happened. Tyler carefully set the ornament on the mantel and then he turned around and all of a sudden I heard a strange sound.... "POP" I turned my head and looked around to see our eight year old little boy staring at the ground looking at what seemed like like a million pieces of what use to be my ornament. It was now just a bunch of shiny pieces of glass on the floor. Tyler was totally devastated and after a brief moment of shock he started to cry. He was so sad that he broke my ornament. The first thing he said through all the tears, was, "Can we glue it back together?" He knew how special that ornament was to me and he just couldn't quit crying about it. It was really touching that he shed so many tears because it showed just how big his heart is, and how much he cared. Now I had to work on helping him stop the tears. I picked him up hugged him and held him close to me until the tears stopped and while I was holding him I told him we were going to make the ornament even more special than it was before. He looked at me through all the tears and said, "How are we gonna do that?"
By now the tears were mostly gone, but his eyes were still glassy and his chin was still quivering as he looked up at me wondering how were were going to make the ornament "More Special". This was one of those defining moments for both me and him. I stood there as a Dad and my job at the moment was to make everything better and give our Son something to remember and look back on. This was one of those "teaching moments" and I'm confident that God was right there pushing me in the right direction on this one. I looked down at the ornament box and grabbed one of Tyler's ornaments that he made back in 2007 when he was in preschool. Ironically, it too, had his name and the year on it in green but his ornament was totally clear, you could see right through it. I picked up that ornament and he and I walked over and sat down on the floor where my ornament lay in pieces and I told him, "My ornament can't hang on the tree anymore by itself. It's going to need some help. Do you think your ornament could hold on to my ornament and maybe they could be on the tree together from now on?" I'm not quite sure he totally understood until I took the top of his ornament off and started to put the pieces of my ornament inside his. He was still a little sad about the fact that my special ornament was broken but you could see that he understood that his ornament just became that much more special because it was now responsible for taking care of my ornament as well, even though my ornament was now nothing but just pieces. I told him, "Hopefully you'll have this ornament for as long as I've had mine. And maybe someday, when you're a Dad, you'll be hanging this ornament on your tree and telling your kids how your ornament is special because it has a big responsibility. It holds Grandpa's ornament inside it and Grandpa's ornament has been on every Hagan Christmas Tree since he was in 2nd grade back in 1976."
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| Tyler & Dad with "Special Ornament" |
I could have easily gotten mad about this because that ornament really was very special to me. It was something I made back in 2nd grade and my Mom took such great care in protecting it all those years and after I got married Wendy did the very same thing. It was always protected in a special case and we were always careful with it. As unfortunate as it was that the ornament broke it provided a great teaching opportunity and bonding moment between Tyler and I. Hopefully it will be something he remembers for a very long time.
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| The Hagan Christmas tree 2011 with the Special Ornament glowing Green right in the center |
Today reminded me of that quote that I like so much....
"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be a different place because I was important in the life of a child."
