An Ornamental Remembery

Remembery’s Rick Neece posted a charming photograph of a Christmas tree ornament at clusterflock, and the sight sparked a remembery of my own favorite childhood ornament, “Two-Star Hennessy”. Two-Star Hennessy was a golden ball figured with two glittering pink stars, one centered in each hemisphere. (Its name, bestowed by my father, referred to Hennessy cognac; two stars perhaps designated V.S.)

I must have been four (perhaps I was five) when Two-Star Hennessy’s spell so enchanted me that I hooked it over my ear (to this day I love big dramatic earrings) and whirled about the living room in a dizzy waltz.

And shattered Two-Star Hennessy.

I felt as though a shard of rose-gold glass had pierced my heart.

But you know what? Come next Christmas (or maybe it was that very same Yule), another Two-Star Hennessy appeared on our tree. Thus did I learn of mass production, and with that knowledge came a slight but perceptible rift between my household world and the realm of enchantment.

(Cross-posted at Remembery)

Sheila Ryan 

Other posts by Sheila Ryan

ABOUT ME: “I live to embellish.” But what do I like to think about? “Oh, the poetics of historical narrative and the records that inspire the narratives.” And what do I do? “Oh, you might say I chronicle (though my business card says I’m an archival consultant and historian). And I’m drawn to the fanciful, the biographical, and the quite possibly mendacious. My Three Graces: Fancy, Biography, and Mendacity.Before I took up the glamorous and profitable racket of archival consultancy and chronicling, I worked (sometimes for pay, sometimes not) as radio host/programmer, narrator of recorded books (for the Library of Congress), Curator of Manuscripts (Brit: Keeper of Manuscripts), industrial spy, lawn-mower, huckster of donations to PBS, production editor for a social science research institute, and amanuensis to an elderly authoress. There was more. My first job? No lie: child model for Dallas department stores. And no, I didn’t do ‘junior’ beauty pageants.”

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