Look, But Don't Touch!

It's kind of a tradition that every year for Christmas Brian and I buy one new ornament. We search the stores for just that right one ... and it has to be something neat. Last year we bought a miniature Pac Man arcade game ornament that plays the Pac Man theme when you push the joystick ... it was awesome!

I have fond memories of when I was little. My grandma would drag up her fake Christmas tree from the basement and we would match the colored ends of the branches to the colored holes on the "trunk". The thing was so old and bare, but I loved it. She had the best ornaments. They were old and fragile ... I still remember she had a little tricycle that the wheels would move. I would zoom it around the floor and pretend like it was a real bike.

Then she'd put on this plastic candy garland. Oh know what I'm talking about? It was basically different shaped white plastic candies ... some were candy canes with red stripes ... peppermint disks with red swirls ... some were even wrapped in a red or green cellophane wrapper. It was gaudy and perfect ... and she had just the right way of winding that candy garland around the inside of the tree so the barren branches wouldn't look so bare.

I still miss that tree and those ornaments.

I hope someday that my kids will fight over who gets the cool old ornaments. I want them to have those fun memories of decorating our tree and looking/playing with the neat old ornaments we'll have. I want them to tell their kids about how Grandma and Grandpa always bought one new ornament each year ... and tell the story of our they would play with those ornaments when they were kids.

I said we search for those ornaments. Every year when the Christmas stuff hits the stores ... we are on the look out for "the ornament". The one cool ornament that will make the cut this year. We were in Appleton today and decided to go to the Hallmark store to look at their selection of ... you guess it ... ornaments. So, we were looking ... and the kids were looking too. We spotted a couple really neat ones that had moving parts and buttons you could push.

I noticed this elderly employee of Hallmark started walking toward Kadin who was enjoying watching one of the ornaments move as he turned the little handle on it. Now, I know that Kadin - at times - is not the most gentle kid in the world. BUT - I was fully confident that he was capable of turning that little handle on this ornament without breaking it.

She looked at him and said ... "Ooooh ... you better be careful with that. We wouldn't want it to break."

So, I noticed she looked a bit nervous ... so I shooed Kadin away from the ornaments and we started looking at something else. Well, Kadin spotted some candles. He loves to smell candles. In fact ... we had just visited Yankee Candle Co ... where he opened and sniffed about 15 candles (all without dropping or breaking a single one I might add). So, naturally he picked up one of the candles and started to open the lid so he could smell it.

Elderly nosey employee said "Gee ... you know those candles are glass. You wouldn't want to break one ... they are also very expensive."

Ummm ... ok. Yes, I realized they were glass and yes I realized they were expensive. I guess what I didn't realize was that children were obviously not allowed to touch anything in this store without said elderly crabby employee lady have a freaking fit!!!! Ahem ...

At this point I am irritated. I am irritated that this woman - who doesn't know us or know my child ... thinks that he is incapable of touching anything without breaking it to pieces. So, I turned to Kadin and said ... "Kadin, please put the candle back because we are obviously making that woman uncomfortable."

Kadin put the candle down ... with a look of confusion on his face. We took him to a different aisle of the store and we continued to look at some other cute holiday things. It wasn't until I noticed that this crabby old hag ... ahem ... was following us around in the store ... watching our every move ... that we decided to leave ... in a hurry.

As we left she had the gaul to say ... "Please come back again soon."

Uhhhh .... WHAT!!???! Brian turned to her and said ... "Not while you still work here."

We walked on our merry way ... to a different store ... where Kadin was allowed to touch stuff and maybe even break things into little bitty pieces - only if he wanted to of course.