Passing Around Ornaments and Passing on Traditions
- Corey Stottlemyer
- Nov 6
- 4 min read
When Cade, Liberty, and I started taking regular trips to Vermont, I was looking to create some memories and hopefully some traditions. This is the story of how one stop on our first summer trip led to a lasting tradition that influences how we celebrate the holidays.
On our first trip, none of us had been to Vermont, so we checked out some Vermont-associated brands like Orvis, King Arthur Flour/Baking, and the Vermont Country Store. I recall my maternal grandmother always having a Vermont Country Store catalog towards the top of a stack of catalogs and magazines. In fact, most of her table linens and a few other items came from there.
When my children and I arrived in the small town of Weston, VT and found the Vermont Country Store, I did not have anything specific I wanted to buy. It was more about the experience of being there. As we walked around the store, I saw stacks of the Mountain Weavers tablecloth design my grandmother had had on her dining table. We also saw various foods and candies that caught our eyes. Cade and I even sat down for a quick game of checkers.
Then, we came upon the Christmas ornament section of the store. Back in 2018, it was along an outside wall. There were all kinds of different ornaments cloth, metal, glass, plastic, plush, etc. Christmas ornaments are very special in my family. Every ornament on Christmas tree has an origin story, which are often shared as we put up the tree soon after Thanksgiving.
In addition to putting the ornaments up on the Christmas Tree, my family gathers every year at Christmas Eve at my parent’s farmhouse to share a meal, to sing a few carols, and to celebrate family togetherness without the presents and the wrapping paper. It is always a happy and special time. This tradition came out of my parents not wanting to take their newborn son out for a Christmas Eve church service on a cold winter’s night and thus inviting family to our house. Over the years we have had as few as six and as many as a baker’s dozen.
One of the highlights of the evening is what we refer to as the ornament pass around. Each person brings a Christmas Tree ornament. We gather in a circle and then someone reads The Night Before Christmas. Every time the word “the” is read we pass our ornament to the right. We continue until the end of the story. If by some chance we have the ornament we brought, the reader will tack a “The End” for one more pass to close it out. I have been doing this as long as I can remember. It has led to some very special memories. To give an example, I recall one year when I got my Aunt Irene’s ornament for what ended up being her last Christmas. Aunt Irene was sick that year and unable to join us, so her daughter, my cousin Carol, brought it on her behalf. Almost forty years later, I still have that ornament and remember Aunt Irene as I place it on the tree every year.
Ahem . . . Back to Vermont where Cade, Liberty and I were standing in front of a wall of ornaments, Cade and Liberty quickly decided that we needed to select our ornaments for that upcoming Christmas on that rather warm day in August. It was incredibly heartwarming to me that my children connected a long-time tradition of my family to this trip that was becoming increasingly meaningful to me. Before long, they started handing me a few ornaments to hold that were shall we say under consideration.
As I looked at their faces, I could see the wonder and curiosity as they looked at all the choices. I could tell that decisions were getting harder. I then suggested that each of us should select two ornaments – one for the pass around and one for our own family tree. The relief on their faces was visible as the excitement grew that they would get to take one home.
Every year when we go back to Vermont, we always squeeze in a trip to the Vermont Country Store to get our ornaments. We then bring them home and place them in a safe spot. When we put up our Christmas Tree we get to remember and reflect on these ornaments the new ones and the ones we got in years passed. Then on December 24th, we head to my parents’ farm and share the ornaments we brought for the pass around.
Family traditions continually evolve, but I appreciate how a long-standing Christmas Eve family tradition merged with newer traditions making them all interconnected and far more meaningful.
