Each year I buy, or preferably make, a Christmas ornament for the whole family. I’m the sort of sentimental type who gets all warm and fuzzy at the idea that my kids’ trees have ornaments in common with our own. Silly, sappy, but yeah, I still do it. Through the years, I’ve sewn, embroidered, shaped clay, glued, and painted ornaments.

This is our ornament for 2022.

I would have liked to have hand made one, but there was just no way this year. I was even late trying to find this year’s ornament—very late. So late that there was little to choose from. Just as I was ready to give up, this one caught my eye, and I knew it was perfect for 2022.

Deconstructed pieces held together by a bit of string and baling wire, dangling precariously and getting tangled with one another. Red glittery bits scattering everywhere, touching everything and sticking, ensuring bits would remain for months, even years, to come. Red, the color of passion and pain, over white, an unsuspecting color surprised, caught unawares by the incursion of scribbles and cryptic marks that leave one tempted to decipher them. But it’s just not likely to make sense, no matter which way you turn them.

Wind rattles this little thing, making the bits clatter and complain, but they hold together. Little cats think them jolly toys, batting them, biting them before they tire for a nap in the Christmas tree. Most important of all, held near enough to one another, the ornaments tangle and get caught up in one another with surprising tenacity, holding each other in a firm, if somewhat chaotic grip.

And that, my friends, completely sums up 2022 for me and mine.

As we walk carefully, quietly into 2023, tiptoeing so we don’t rock the boat too much, may we all hold tight to the good of last year, hold light to the bad, and remain well and firmly tied in to who and what holds us together.