“I choose to believe it’s human remains” – Me to my youngest sister earlier today.
Let me explain.
Around 10 years ago, Randy and I bought an antique Christmas ornament at a consignment shop.
It’s a red heart made out of metal with pewter or something that looks like pewter at the bottom with some ornate chains hanging from it. It’s not huge, but on the large side for a tree ornament.
We hadn’t planned on buying a Christmas ornament. It was an impulse buy, but one I’ve never regretted. It’s a cool fucking ornament,
So, Randy and I both happened upon the same article recently.
The reason why it caught our eye, is the picture on the article was a picture of our ornament, only the heart in the picture was blue instead of red. Other than that, they are identical.
Turns out, these ornaments were sold as urns.
I guess at the turn of the century, it was completely normal to hang the ashes of dead loved ones on the Christmas tree.
I’m in charge of decorating our tree.
By in charge, I mean no one helps me.
I have been hanging that ornament on our tree for 10 years or more. I couldn’t recall if I ever noticed that the ornament had something inside of it. I mean, I’m not in the habit shaking ornaments before I hang them.
I considered not even putting up our tree this year, but after reading that article, I really had to.
You guys, there’s something inside my ornament.
The ornament’s not filled or anything. It doesn’t feel like there is a lot of something in it, but there is definitely something in it. Dense, but not heavy. You know, like ash.
Hence, the conversation with my sister.
Me: I mean, I guess it could be the ashes of a pet. But I choose to believe it is human remains. We’ve been unwittingly hanging some random dead person’s remains on our tree for years.
Baby Sister: Shell, that’s creepy. That is wrong.
Me: I bet that explains why the cats don’t bother the tree.
My son Joey suggested just throwing it away.
Seriously? Is he fucking crazy? How many people get to hang a stranger’s cremains from their tree? It might be the coolest thing we own.
Me: Why would we do that?
Joey: We’re just inviting weird shit to happen. We have a haunted tree.
Me: Yeah, but we’ve been hanging it for years and I haven’t noticed any haunting.
Joey: That’s because we didn’t know. Now that we know, it will activate the ashes.
Me: It’s too bad Supernatural ended. I could have sold this idea as their next Christmas special.
Joey: We’ll just have to keep an eye on it.
Me: I did notice that when Alfie the Kitty got close to the tree that he started doing this weird, guttural chanting.
Joey:…
Me: It’s going to be a Merry Christmas.
I haven’t bought new ornaments for quite a while.
I did, however, get a few of these. Because what is more festive than a “fuck 2020” ornament?
I sent the other ones in a card to a few friends.
I sent 7 of them and, so far, 2 people have told me that theirs had broken into pieces in the mail. I suspect that will be the fate of the other 5. Which isn’t surprising because fuck 2020. They’re plastic, I really thought they’d be okay.
I hope you all have a healthy and safe holiday season. Keep us in your thoughts in the event our Christmas tree turns on us.
Alfie is going to get a hernia trying to drag that thing around the living room, much less try to climb it. That is one loaded tree! If whoever (whatever) had a problem hanging from your tree, they haven’t made it an issue yet, and just think, the person who packed up grandma and donated it to charity has paid less attention to it than you have. And you love it – and by extension, whoever (whatever) is in it. So there’s more love in your home than the original one. Or better yet, let sleeping dogs lie.
XOXOXOXOXOXOX
I think that is an exceptionally cool ornament! Merry, merry!
Merry Merry to you as well!!!!
That is hilarious. Some random person’s cremains upon your Christmas tree, in an
antique heart urn. After reading this today, unexpected on a Sunday (nice surprise in this Fucking 2020) I happened upon your
post from October in which you and your
Lizzie murder each other and turn into trees. Or something, maybe outhouses, then trees. So now you’ve got a heart on a tree fit for a burnt corpse! There must be room in there for one or two more!
Serendipity do dah, my friend. Or do I mean synchronicity felicity?
Love you and your macabrichell, as always.
Thank you so much!!! I’m so glad you enjoyed my weird ass posts!
My friend Dan had his ashes smuggled back into Cuba where he was born, but I don’t think they were hidden in a Christmas ornament. Although I don’t know that for sure, as it was his sister who did the smuggling and I have never met her.
Speaking of cremation, PG&E has decided that in order for us to avoid it, they are turning off our electricity tomorrow at 5AM and keeping it off until Tuesday at 10PM.
So I guess we’ll be eating that frozen pizza tonight, and probably at least most of the remaining Klondikes.
The power went out for a few hours the other day and the Klondikes melted a little, so they would be unlikely to survive 41 hours in any form you would want to eat.
But, like, it’s fucking December. Public safety power outages? In December? Really?
If you do notice any paranormal activity, could you please ask whatever spirits are involved to haunt the holy fuck out of the adenoids of the executives at PG&E for me?
I hope you have a good holiday season, and that we all make it out the other end of the goddamn apocalypse.
I am sending my vengeful spirits to PG&E right now
I’m taking a little time off at the holidays. We won’t be doing much, but I won’t be working, either. I think I’m going to finish painting the upstairs. That’s my plan now, at least. We’ll see.
I would sooooooo open that ornament… I wouldn’t be able to resist temptation.
It’s sealed shut. I’d have to break it.
Very nice
I guess I’m glad I know. I mean, it makes a good story.
If you break off the ornaments evenly, they should all say “FU 2020” which is even better.
It does speak volumes.
I swear. You have the most fun <3
And I'm loving the cat reaction – if hanging an urn from the tree keeps the cats away, you have a nifty marketing niche.
Now for some dead people. I mean, unclaimed ashes from your local crematorium.
Yeah, it was pretty weird. And the cats really don’t bother the tree, they never have, but I have no proof it’s the urn.
I just love the idea that you might be hanging someone cremains on your tree. You’d be more likely to have a haunting if you got rid of it or didn’t bring it out because, seriously, that’s the remains of someone who probably fucking loved Christmas and if you deprive them of their one chance to get out and, well, hang with your family they’re going to be really pissed off.
Also Christmas hauntings are really traditional on the other side of the pond. In Britain Christmas–not Halloween–has been the traditional time for ghost stories. I’m sure respecting that will bring you lots of good luck.
Who doesn’t love a good Christmas ghost story?
I’m going to have to get Joey to watch Scrooged. He says he’s never seen it. That must be rectified.
Seriously Michelle? This could only happen to you! I laughed out loud reading this. I KNEW you were going to tell us something is in your ornament, because, well, of course there would be, it’s still 2020! Hahaha. I think you should name it. Hahaha. Thank you for making my day! Merry Christmas to you ALL!
My friend Lizzie said I should name it as well. I am considering Walter or Agnes.
Evidently putting cremains in ornaments is still a “thing” – see the link below or search on “cremains in ornaments”. It’s still creepy.
https://www.spiritpieces.com/collections/christmas
Just an FYI. On your broken ornaments in the mail. Optical readers that the PO uses to sort mail have to squeeze letters through device so the camera can “read” the address. Anything in simple card or letter runs the risk of being damaged in the process. Material like this should go in a padded envelope. Sorry they were broken,
We just did the cheap “hang a mask on the tree” this year.
Bob
Yeah, that lesson has certainly been learned. sigh.
Crap. Now I feel like I looked in my mother’s closet and saw what I was going to get.
Yes…a broken obscene ornament is in your future.
That is weird and a little creepy.