A vintage family Santa Claus and 2 legged Reindeer

The store shelves groan with shiny new things, tempting shoppers to bring them home.

New things seldom tempt me.

I am more of a memory keeper. What others might consider trash, I rescue with tender affection. The value of “things” isn’t so much in the item itself, but the stories behind them.

Our family Santa Claus was an invitation to children

Santa’s face is practically rubbed off, without his sleigh and reindeer he might be just another guy in a suit. But my hands, the same fingers typing this story, were part of a family of children who gingerly played with him under the tree.

He is part of it too.

It being my Grandparent’s Christmas village. Every year we grandkids eagerly looked forward to this tiny world.

Grandpa would assemble a platform with multiple levels to sit the tree on. Grandma would cover it with white and place the cardboard houses and plastic figurines just so.

And, we would enter the land of magic.

Our family Santa Claus is a precious gateway

Lights illuminated the tiny windows of colored plastic. The bottlebrush trees made us dream of snow (something we NEVER had in SoCal), and the animals and elves and angels would invite us to imagine.

Memories are precious. My much older fingers once again arranged that vintage scene. Shiny and new have nothing on faded and broken in my book. Not when there is still a story left to tell…