1953

Was the year that I got this Teddybear. He is called Ulli, after a boy, that I liked in first grade. He accompanied me through the rest of my life, listened to all my sorrows and doubts, and always seemed to give me back some sense. He has a serious look on one side and a little smiling on the other. He moved more than 26 times with me and now came to the US in 2004. Of course you cannot see anything else than a greatly worn out teddy , no more nose, his hands and feet would need new stuffing, but I never notice the missing parts, my brain, my memory just fills in what is missing. I hate to admit it, but there were times in my life, when he was more important than the partners I was with...
He is fancily dressed with a sweater knitted by my mother in the sixties and a pair of pants that I made myself out of the sample suitcase with which my dad had to travel in the last years of his business life. He wasn't made to be a representative, rather a director of a textile factory. But textile had already started to go downhill in the early sixties in Europe, so that was how he tried to keep us above water.
In the middle is an Adventscalender that my daughter sent me yesterday and that made me really happy. It is an old fashioned one, with little doors behind which little images are hiding that make sense at the spot where they are. The el cheapo ones that one can buy nowadays in big supermarkets have either a piece of chocolate behind the doors or a little image that makes no sense at the place where it is. I so appreciate that she found this one, in combination with the little Volkswagen bus scene in the middle, also right out of the fifties.
You put some candles behind it in the evening and the light shines through the windows. We always had these when we were kids, and I tried to find them for my daughter too when she was little. When she grew up, I have to admit it, the calenders that offer a little package each day, with little toys or candy , were more popular.
And on the right side I put my favorite candle holder. It is an old family heirloom, showing 3 dolphins at the bottom, goes back to the beginning of the last century and belonged to my dad. He liked it a lot and I am glad that it is with me.

I am very grateful for all the little things my mom passed on to me, while still alive. It turned out after her passing, that my sisters had managed to manoeuver me out of what was once supposed to go to me. (They were symbolized by the big boulders that I photographed in November while in the forest.)
Meanwhile I don't feel that way anymore, I don't care about what they did. I am just very grateful for what I have.
And I do admit, I am a person who is very attached to old things and memories. :-)