Years ago I had the sort of standard Christmas tree as everyone else; glass balls, garlands, tinsel, etc. And then I started collecting odd ball ornaments that had a personal meaning to me, like a pink dragon (purchased in Berkeley), African lizard (purchased in San Antonio) or a wooden fox (purchased in St. Louis). So when I unwrap them, I also recall their acquisition, who I was with, and why we were there. And at some point I got rid of all the ordinary baubles and now my tree is just these personal trinkets. So this was this year’s addition to the collection.

I already have a number of dinosaurs for the tree as I love them and studied them in college. This and the following felt dinos are fair-trade ornaments from either Peter Jones or the Natural History Museum in London. They are rather adorable, aren’t they?

Besides dinos there was also these animal musicians, and well, they don’t really fit with any theme that I have so far, but, they were cute, so in the basket they went.

Dinosaurs are also available locally, these were the last two on the shelves, but there were plenty of ballerinas still available.

Oh yeah, this fancy dinosaur came from the Natural History Museum as well. I thought that the museum had dressed their animatronic T-Rex in a similar sweater last year, but maybe I only dreamed it.

I did tell you that I loved this tiny armadillo, and had to purchase one for myself, so here it is, hanging on my tree.

So now all of these ornaments have become part of my memories of this year. They will be appearing in my living room until January 1st. Then they shall join the others until next year, as part of the ghosts of Christmas past.