Musings on a Small Life

After Mom passed in March, I brought back only one Christmas decoration, this Father Christmas boot. I don't know where it came from, perhaps from my father's side of the family, as they were German. Whatever its origins, it's obviously very old; it has been put out at each Christmas throughout my entire life. I remember it in Gaspé, when I was growing up (it sat on a bookcase in the downstairs hall), and I remember it in Mom and Harry's house in Halifax. Mom put it out every year she was in the apartment too. So now it lives with me, though I only remembered yesterday that I had it packed away.  Father Christmas is actually rather scary, if you look too closely, and I would be very afraid to do a swab of that tinsel inside the boot, as it's original too. But it's a Christmas tradition in my family, and so it will have new life, of sorts, with me. If you have any "scary" or strange items you put out every year, any long-standing traditions, please feel...