Why I’m Keeping All the Broken Christmas Ornaments

By Jess Carpenter of Jess Carpenter Writes

Saturday, I was elbow deep in my favorite activity: Dishes. The thing that got me to stop? The sound of shattering glass. Obviously, I launched into my natural, “What did you just do?!” while running to the front room where we had just decorated the Christmas tree not one hour ago.

There, my one-year-old stood with a grin that rivaled Baby Grinch, three shatter-proof ornaments in hand. Behind him, my three-year-old was on her hands and knees, desperately trying to pick up the pieces of the ornament she had just shattered. Of course, she couldn’t have been playing with the shatter-proof ones. She had to reach up high on her tiptoes, picking out the one ornament I had bought on the honeymoon my husband and I took five years ago.

The sand and glitter were strewn across the floor, the shells and little sand toys haphazardly being picked up in her tiny hands. A priceless ornament filled with the memory of one of our first big trips together as a couple was now gone forever. I won’t get the ornament back. But as I watched her pick up the pieces of the ornament (for like, 0.3 seconds because it was glass), I wasn’t mad anymore.

Part of me was upset, of course. Truthfully, it wasn’t the first ornament she had broken, but the look of devastation on…