No Ordinary Ornaments Headless Batman, Fiddle Among Holiday Traditions In Slice’s Call For Ornaments

Nothing says “holiday spirit” quite like a headless Batman.

At least that’s true at Bonnie Tapscott’s home.

A toddler placed the 4-inch action figure on the family’s Christmas tree four years ago. And everybody got a big kick out of seeing this unexpected yule decoration. So the decapitated Caped Crusader has been making annual tannenbaum appearances ever since. “It has become a real tradition,” said Tapscott.

The Slice asked readers to tell about their families’ favorite Christmas tree ornaments. And we received enough responses to fill a small sleigh.

Here’s just some of what we heard.

“When my mother was a young girl she spent part of her days caring for her ailing grandmother,” wrote Larry Inman of St. Maries. “One year her grandmother gave her a treasured family ornament and scribbled a quill-and-ink note on the box that if she were not alive at Christmas my mother was to keep the bulb.

“My mother, who is now 75, passed this fifth-generation ornament to me along with the original box and note. A real slice of family history is brought out each year at Christmas when we carefully display our heavy glass, plain green heirloom.”

Odessa’s Laura Estes has special fondness for a made-in-Germany glass ball. It was purchased for her late father on the occasion of his first Christmas in 1913. “It’s a wonderful reminder of him,” she wrote.

Amanda Shelden told about how her father in Kansas puts one of his fiddles, adorned with a pheasant feather, in the tree each year.

Doris Swehla takes a certain whimsical delight in a 5-inch glass “devil lady” ornament purchased in Columbia almost 30 years ago. The unusual holiday figurine has a tail, horns and a pig nose.

Carol Roberts in Libby, Mont., still has a glass angel created by a friend 28 years ago in celebration of the first Christmas for Roberts’ son. The angel is most definitely a boy and the fact that it is “anatomically correct,” as Roberts put it, accounts in part for its enduring status as a seasonal conversation piece.

At Keri Yirak’s house, there’s a diminutive stuffed elf with Velcro hands and feet that family members delight in stashing in unexpected places. “It’s like playing hide and seek,” she said.

Heather Binkley has a clear glass Christmas tree bulb partly filled with a portion of the cremated remains of a beloved dog named Bongo.

Beverly Bass still displays a white and red star bought at the Elk drug store in Browne’s Addition 45 years ago.

Jean Adams has hung on to an ornamental angel given to her by a little boy who was one of her Sunday school students 40 years ago.

Janette Lippincott still decorates her tree with an aluminum foil bell created by her then-preschool daughter nearly 30 years ago.

Ruth Jewell, 75, cherishes a small pink bell her father bought for her back at the time of her first Christmas.

Coeur d’Alene’s Frances Klingaman told about a decorative red pencil designed for use by Santa - you know, to check off toys on his deliveries list. “When my son was small he would always see if the pencil was on the tree,” she wrote. “He still does and he is 57 now.”

Bonnie Colby has the tree ornaments that once belonged to her mom, who died 40 years ago. Her favorite is shaped like a teapot.

When Ted Kaufmann was a 7-year-old boy in Billings, Mont., back in 1963, his family couldn’t afford many Christmas tree ornaments.

At the time, a chain of gas stations using the slogan “Put a tiger in your tank” gave away fake tiger tails to hang on tail pipes. Kaufmann had another idea. He hung one on the family Christmas tree. It was the beginning of a tradition that continues to this day.

Thomas Gummer has a Santa ornament that has been a family fixture since 1923.

Ritzville’s Diane Eastman has some cotton Santas her parents bought (eight for five cents) on the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.

Alice Allbee’s favorite is a cardboard Santa made by her daughter about 45 years ago. “It was copied from one I made my mother about 66 years ago,” she wrote.

Mary Lou Wilson in Coeur d’Alene treasures a revolving ornament that makes it look as if the three wise men and their camels are going backward. “I can still remember how hard Dad laughed the first time,” she wrote.

Rita Sullivan, 74, has a delicate glass bell that first appeared on her family’s tree when she was a baby in Butte, Mont.

Arnold and Lois Critchlow prize an angel and a star that go back about 80 years. “They are old and ugly but mean a lot to the whole family,” wrote Lois.

Patty Gates told about how her family found a tiny well-hidden bird nest in their 1984 Christmas tree. The delicate discovery was carefully removed and has become an annual ornament.

Thomas Gaver Jr. still has a paper angel he made in kindergarten, 51 years ago.

Barbara Keene displays a paper reindeer her son Greg made when he was in first grade, 27 years ago.

Glenna Ainley’s favorite ornament was fashioned from a ringlet of her son’s hair, retrieved after his first haircut.

When Newman Lake’s Crystal Telecky was a little girl in Florida back in 1962, she noticed an ornament in a church gift shop that she really wanted. It was a little angel holding a candle.

Her mom told her she could buy it if she earned the money. So she started collecting pop bottles for deposit and eventually had enough money to buy the angel. “For 35 years, I have always been the one to hang her on the tree,” she wrote.

This is Kresha Frankhauser’s first Christmas living alone. But her family hasn’t exactly forgotten her. Her little sister Katie and several of her friends made a batch of ornaments for Frankhauser’s tree.

Patsy Clark’s favorite ornament is a little plastic gazebo-shaped number containing a small brass piece that spins when placed directly over a tree light. “We have three daughters who are almost to the point of a legal battle over who should inherit this,” she wrote.

Of course, ornaments aren’t the only holiday symbols that become fixtures.

Cheryl Bratton still has the artificial Christmas tree she bought for $10 while going to college in California in 1967. “Now my daughter sets it up for me while I play with the grandchildren,” she wrote.

Tonasket’s Julie Goyette told about an ornament she made when she was 8, an object she has begged her mother to throw away. It’s made of styrofoam and adorned with yellow beads and sequins. “It looks like a piece of gaudy costume jewelry,” she said.

Thanks to everyone who shared a story. Sorry we couldn’t use them all.

Here’s one more.

Cora Armstrong’s favorite ornament is a pink crocheted basket measuring 2 inches around. It has a 3-inch high handle. “It has had a special place on our tree these past 75 years,” she wrote. “I was 3 years old when my aunt Norine made it and put it there for me.”

Aunt Norine was from Maine and she had an odd accent. And Armstrong loved her. One of her earliest memories is taking that basket to bed with her and sucking it to taste its sugar coating.

Some 50 years later, Armstrong took her family to visit her aunt, who was in poor health. The elderly woman couldn’t really move or speak.

“I was so upset, wondering what I could even talk about,” Armstrong recalled. “It was then that I told her we still put the little basket (who cares if the color clashes) on our tree each year.

“I honestly believe she understood, for her listless eyes seemed to ‘smile.”’

It’s a tiny basket. “But it holds a lifetime of memories.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 color photos