They resemble the ones my hometown of Humboldt decorated with when I was growing up, and likely Humboldt continues to use these. You've seen them: two dimensional wire silhouettes of a couple familiar shapes associated with Christmas. A candle and a Christmas tree are the two I clearly remember. Around the wire frame is wrapped some festive colored industrial strength, sparkled "tinsel", for a lack of a more accurate word, and matching lit bulbs.. They are not elaborate. They're built to last through some tough Kansas Holiday seasons.
These kinds of decorations hold a keen sense of nostalgia for me. Similar to an angel or star which adorns a family Christmas tree each year, and which every family member agrees is gaudy and out of date; these humble Holiday decorations will be greatly missed when they are finally replaced and some little piece of the Holiday spirit of humble beginnings, like those of the first Nativity, is lost.
Of course, I'm somewhat of a sentimentalist. However, replacing beloved ornaments for aesthetic reasons i.e. because they're ugly and old, just kind of hurts my feelings. It seems I've always had this weakness: projecting feelings into inanimate objects which I've possessed. When I was a child, I'd feel guilty about not playing with some of my older, more battered toys, or the toys I'd played with when I was younger and more babyish. I'd get that lump in my throat feeling what I thought must have been their feelings of not being wanted anymore. I'd also feel guilty about being a younger, more innocent person back when I gave that toy a lot of attention, and now, later, my tastes demanded less innocence and more flash.
It's a childish thing to do perhaps, to project feelings onto things which don't have feelings: old, disused toys; battered and out of date decorations; threadbare and worn jeans, shirts, and boots. It's likely every bit as childish to hang onto these sentimental feelings of nostalgia for familiar items from our past, and to maintain an affinity for things of the past in general. After all, the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. Eventually, everything around you will become obsolete or broken, or already has.
People become obsolete and broken, too. We eventually will become unable to contribute anything of value or use to our loved ones and our country. We become old and ugly. All that will remain, we hope, is for people to maintain a childish devotion to the way things once were; how each of us used to be on our best days according to someone else's individual perceptions and experiences with us. This will be the value we have for others. We are different from toys, decorations, clothing, and furniture, of course. We have feelings. I want to treat people like the irreplaceable, invaluable beings they are; not like replaceable Christmas decorations.
No doubt when Humboldt and Ottawa replace these old fashioned Holiday decorations they just won't be the same for some of us. The new ones will be much better in every way, that will be the difference. But, that doesn't mean the old ones don't 't have any value. They were good enough for us "back then", when we were younger, and more innocent. I'll like the new Christmas decorations, and I'll pine for the old ones. This Holiday season, let's all be sure we don't disregard the people in our lives who were once important to us, "back then". Let's show them they're far more important than "things", and let's spend our most valuable asset on them: our time. Spend time with those people. They're more than decorations.
Amen Brother!
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