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Thursday, December 15, 2022

Treasure Chest Thursday: Corpus Christi Ornaments

We have WAY more Christmas tree ornaments now than we will ever need, given that we don't put up a large tree any more, and also inherited a number of ornaments from my parents.  So I thought I would write about the stories behind a few of the more interesting ones.

The ones I'm writing about today are ones we still put on the tree - meaning the offspring won't be getting them anytime soon - because they remind us of our life in Corpus Christi, Texas - even though I'm not sure I actually got any of these ornaments *in* Corpus Christi.

I bought this stained glass ornament because it reminds me of the Wagon, a 22-foot Catalina sailboat that was my husband's first:  



The sails on this balsa-wood sailboat ornament actually pivot a little bit, which makes me think of tacking while sailing.



This next one is an ornamental key to the City of Corpus Christi, Texas.  I received it from Mayor Luther Jones after taking countless photos of him presenting one of these keys to others, during my time working for the City's Information Services (aka public information) Offiice, October 1981 through March 1983.



I know I liked the idea of a holiday "tree" decorated with shells.  One year I sent a Christmas card with just that image, with a sea star at the top.  Having lived almost all of the first 27 years of my life on or near the Texas Gulf Coast, holiday images full of snow were never relevant to me.



The shells that make up the body and wings of this angel ornament were common enough along Texas Gulf Coast beaches (incongruous arks look like these), and cowries could also be found there, but the head of this angel is actually a gold ring cowrie, not found in Texas.



Of course I had to get a palm tree ornament - this one was rather unique.



The lightning whelk is the Texas state shell.  While it's hard to tell exactly what this glass shell ornament is supposed to be, it has the conic shape of a whelk.



I really liked these cross-sections of shells.  The one on top was an earring; I lost its mate.  I can't remember where I got the second one.



Finally, oyster reefs were at one time common between Nueces and Corpus Christi bays, stretching from Rincon Point on the north end of North Beach to Indian Point on the Portland side, roughly where the highway causeway between the two areas is today.  It was even used as a road in early years.  Mark remembers going out there with his father and friends in the early 1970s to harvest oysters.  They were all gone by the 1980s, although efforts are now being made in the area to farm them.  Mark never found a pearl in his oysters, though.



© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!


6 comments:

  1. Lovely ornaments, Amanda, with precious memories that they evoke! Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones.

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    1. Thank you for the comment, Marian, and for the follow and boost on Mastodon! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

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  2. Love those!!! So special. I have a new found respect for the stain glass sail boat this year! :)

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    1. I bet the stained glass sailboat would be very easy for you to make now, Tracy! Thanks for commenting!

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  3. An interesting collection! You have so many items. How do you choose/decide what to put on a tree and what to leave in a box? Is it random?

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    1. Aleksandra, that's a great question! All of these Corpus Christi ornaments went on this year's tree. I also have a bunch of "Old World" glass ornaments that went on the tree - I will probably write about them this Thursday - plus a bunch of ornaments made of sequins (a topic for next week). I was going for maximum sparkles and shine, because I didn't want to open new boxes of tinsel to put on this tree. Back in January, I photographed ALL my ornaments, mostly so my offspring could look at them and pick some out. In the process, I organized them, both in Flickr (where they are posted), and, more or less, in boxes. I need to make some adjustments on "my" boxes, which are the ones I used this year and will likely keep. That would be these ornaments, others I'll write about this week, plus a few given to me when I was younger that I've written about in the past (check the "ornaments" label). Thanks for commenting!

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