A Note On Snow Globes
My husband has a history of making me cry on Christmas, but in a good way! Last year it was asking me to marry him while my family that lives in 3 different states all came together to witness. This year, it was snow globes.
Snow globes?
You see, two days before we got married my dad excitedly dropped off totes full of things left behind in my childhood bedroom. Journals, CDs, scrapbooks, and... my collection of snow globes. I was attempting to clean up and organize all this “junk” when a wave of emotion hit me as I opened the tote labeled “fragile” and realized what was in it. When I was a kid, I began collecting snow globes and keeping them dusted and well displayed in my room, even as I grew into a teenager. I treasured the adventure behind getting and receiving the thing. It all started with my grandpa proudly buying me the biggest snow globe I had ever seen and it was of the nativity scene. Another emotion that followed was a little tug in my heart as I beat myself up for ever forgetting about these things that use to mean something to me.
When I left home at 18 I didn’t care to take with me a lot of stuff. I think I partly left this collection of (22) snow globes behind because I subconsciously knew the guy I was dating at the time would make fun of me for it, or because I hadn’t yet found a place to call home and would keep them safe.
Between the age, weather damage, and whatever else played a role in their decaying, I was only able to keep about 4 of them. Tucked away in a box down in our basement to be discovered by nosey children one day. I think my husband must have noticed the tears welling up in my eyes as I carried the boxes of “junk” and busted treasure to the curb.
He eagerly suggested that I should keep them and we could fix some of the globes that had now turned brown and gross. He even went as far as to look up how to fix old snow globes and I later noticed my large nativity globe was down in the basement. I said something along the lines of it not being that big of a deal and I can always try to collect new ones one day.
So, it’s not exactly the materialistic gesture of the snow globe itself but rather the realization that he noticed what they meant to me. I never said aloud that I wanted a snow globe, but that’s the funny thing I’m learning about love and life partners: they don’t need you to always say what you want out loud. They can read your eyes when you’re in a room with people who bother you. They hold your hand in the car while you drive past a place that gives you undisclosed anxiety. They know what it means to value something.
His goal wasn’t to make me cry and he proclaimed that it was “lame” before I opened it up. Because another tradition of ours is not being able to wait until Christmas to give each other gifts...But, it wasn’t lame, and now he knows another little way to my heart.
I promise I intend to write about things that aren’t sentimental, but in the spirit of the season I’m feeling a bit emotional and reminiscent. What is something that has sentimental meaning to you?
Merry Christmas all!