Stories at Christmas

How can you tell the story of a family through its treasures, in particular a special collection of treasures? That is the original premise of Edmund de Waal’s family memoir – ‘The hare with the amber eyes’. The author becomes intrigued by his great-uncle’s collection of 264 netsuke (small Japanese carvings), and when they are passed on to him after his great-uncle dies, he begins to trace their story from hand to hand through his family. And from city to city – from Paris to Vienna to Tokyo, taking in all the tumult of the last century along the way.

Reading the book made me reflect again on the 26 Treasures project, the importance that objects have in our life, and how we often take for granted, and don’t see, the objects that surround us in our lives. We don’t take time out to reflect on the stories of those objects.

Christmas is a time for reflection. Returning home to visit my mother for Christmas, I am surrounded by Christmas decorations, which are pulled out of storage every year, and are reminders of the people who gave them – the jogging Santa Christmas tree decoration with a number 82 on the front, given by my grandfather in the year that my brother was born. The wooden goose candlestick holder given by my great aunt. A choir of small wooden angels standing on top of the piano, given by a friend of my mother’s. The Christmas tree mobile that I made when I was 10 years old. And so the list goes on.

These objects take on greater significance because they make an appearance just once a year – and I like the connections that they make to the people that gave them (even if I wince at the handiwork of my 10 year old self).

So, wherever you are for Christmas, I invite you to take another look at the objects that surround you – and imagine the stories that you might tell about them, and the stories that they might tell about you, your family, and history.

by Olivia Sprinkel