Different things make the holiday spirit officially kick in each year. It might be the fun parties. Could be the “cool” Christmas music. Little pieces of plastic hanging from a tree. Maybe it’s the esoteric, homemade annual traditions. For me, it’s all the above.

After this year’s the annual Trek to the Attic, followed immediately by the Hauling Down Heavy Boxes of Ornaments In a Most Unergonomic Fashion, the tree was up and it was decoratin’ time. I then realized – I remember this every year but then quickly forget – that many ornaments serve as little plastic time capsules:

A hand-made ornament made from an old recycled computer mouse and purchased at a fundraiser by a very dear friend who left us a few years ago. She gave it to us on New Year’s Eve. We miss her. I wrote “Good Souls” immediately after she passed.

A token from Guide Dogs way back when we were volunteering in 2003. Pinky, our first guide dog, recently retired. Roma, our second, was dropped for a minor health issue. She’s now ten and spoiled, though she did have a brief career as a product tester for West Paw Design. It kept her in free toys for awhile.

Though never much of a Trekkie, I was smitten with ST:TOS when I was a kid. My mom gave me this copy of the Enterprise space ship the year before we lost her. People tell me it’s a collectible. Like I’d ever sell it.

Our fake tree is pretty old and time capsule-y, too. My dad gave it to my wife and me after he decided he didn’t want a tree anymore. We’ve been using it for over 20 years. A few Christmases ago, we mulled over getting a nice flocked tree. Then we priced them and decided to stay with fake.

A few days later, I was working at home and caught the smell of an auto shop wafting in from outside. But I was at home. Turns out my ever-resourceful wife – whom I adore, who never throws anything out, who insists on finding a home fix for everything, and who never reads this blog so I can pretty much say whatever I want – found an old can of white Rustoleum in the garage and flocked our tree herself.

We still have our home-flocked tree. But now all touchups are done outside. It’s tradition, ya know.