TREASURE HUNT

Two weeks ago I claimed a few hours for myself and spent them doing something I always enjoy, strolling through the flea market.

As I looked through a stack of vintage linens at one dealer’s space I noticed three plastic Christmas ornaments from the 1940s or ‘50s on the table beside me – a trio of silvery camels carrying the three wise men.

While I was there, a woman walked by. When she saw the three camels she gasped, “My mother had these!” and scooped them up. She turned excitedly to her friends and told them that she had inherited her mother’s ornaments and that, although now they were worn and broken, they were still very special to her.

The woman held the three ornaments and called out to the dealer, asking how much they were.

At that moment someone called my name and I turned away. When I looked back the woman and the three camels were gone.

Later as I decorated my tree, and I unpacked the boxes of slightly shabby things that have been a part of my holiday since I was a child, I thought about the woman at the flea market, about how excited she had been to find the pieces and how eager she had been to buy them. Looking at the fragile blown-glass ornaments, the faded cards, homemade decorations and rag-tag mementoes I hang on my tree every year, I understood why she reacted as she did.

There is something so precious about the tangible – and tarnished – links to our childhood that we bring out this time of year. Through them, we not only celebrate Christmas in the present, we also revisit the Christmases of the past.

But what about the things that get lost with time, things that are broken or slip away from us?

That’s one of the reasons it is so much fun to browse through antique malls and flea markets, or stop by an estate sale this time of year. You may, when you least expect it, stumble upon something that you didn’t realize you were looking for – a connection to your past. And even though the budget may be strained by the holidays, chances are, your find won’t cost a lot.

I don’t know what the woman paid for the three silvery camels with colorful wise men seated on their backs, but I’d be willing to bet she got them all for under $10. Probably much less.

But it was obvious to everyone that as she held the plastic trinkets that had not attracted any attention until she walked by, and told her story to her friends, she was as excited as a child on Christmas morning.