Week 49 (Dec. 2-8): Handed Down

There is so much that can be 'Handed Down' by family.  Heirlooms, certainly, but we are also handed down so much more.  Stories are often handed down by generations, family legends that may or may not be 100% accurate.  Traditions are also 'handed down', some of which are common, some cultural and some unique to your family.  Family traits are handed down in our DNA.  Even names can be 'handed down' within the family, used generation after generation.  The list goes on.

I have blogged several times about my family's Christmas traditions, which started last Sunday when my Christmas tree went up and decorating began.  As usual, the tree will stand un-decorated for a week until my cat loses interest, and tinsel will not be used in my decorating as he sees tinsel as a food group (his stomach and vet both disagree).

A few years ago I posted about my experience of my sister and I cleaning out the family home after the deaths of our parents - our father in 2013 and mother in 2015 - and the importance of knowing the stories behind the many treasures tucked away in cupboards and drawers, or out in the shed.

Cleaning out the house, we came across treasures in every corner.  A hand tinted photo of my mother as a child, a box of slides and negatives from early in our parents' marriage, a small garnet brooch that belonged to my great grandmother, a bronze alligator nutcracker made by my grandfather, and so much more. 

Then there is my heirloom garden gnome.  Some family treasures are small, portable and easy to take with you when you move.  Some, like my gnome, are not.  He is about 50 cm tall, and my family purchased two of them for my father's 50th birthday, back in January 1976.  When we sold the family home my sister and I decided we wanted to keep one gnome each.  At the time we first brought them, there was a rash of gnome-napping happening where we lived, with gnomes disappearing from gardens, never to be seen again.  So my father filled the concrete shells with solid concrete, then installed them on concrete plinths about 30 cm in diameter and 10 cm thick, out in our front yard.  They weigh a ton, and needless to say, they have never been successfully 'gnome-napped'.

Then, there is the heirloom hare's foot fern.  The original hares-foot belonged to my grandmother.  Before she passed away, my mother took a cutting from her plant, brought it home and potted it.  It thrived in our greenhouse and by the time my parents passed away it had overgrown its pot, attached itself to the wooden shelf the pot sat upon, and was firmly attached to the shelf.  Clearly it was not moving with me to my new home.  So much as my mother had done, I took a few cuttings, potted them and hoped for the best.

These two little cuttings have thrived.  They quickly outgrew the little pots I had started them in, and have since been transplanted to bigger pots.  They sit, one in my main bathroom and one in a stand in my dining room, and I think of my mother and grandmother whenever I see them.  I have recently taken a new cutting from one of these plants and potted it for a friend.  And so the heirloom hares-foot fern continues the be 'handed down', hopefully for many years to come.

What items do you have tucked away in odd corners that you hope to 'hand down' to the next generation??  Do your children or grandchildren know the stories behind those treasures you have stored away??  If they don't, chances are they will dismiss those items as junk and they will be lost.  If your children don't know the story behind Great Aunt Mary's tea set - or even that the tea set in the shed was Great Aunt Mary's and not something you picked up on a whim at a jumble sale - then they will have no reason to keep it, value it, and ultimately pass it - and its story - on to another generation.