I Didn’t Mean to Collect Cookie Jars
Years ago I didn’t have a cookie jar and right before Christmas I mentioned that fact to a few people.
Soon after that I found this cute Hump
ty Dumpty in a box full of junk at a yard sale about twenty-five years ago and bought it for a couple of dollars. He was so old and so darned cute I didn’t want anybody chipping him so I never filled him with cookies but put him up high where he could be seen and not heard.
Well … soon it was Christmas and I received three cookie jars as gifts, one was a large red strawberry from my children, one was a cute white sitting donkey from my sister, and the other was a funny old cowboy from my dad. All of a sudden I had four cookie jars. I put cookies in the strawberry one the kids had given me and put the other two on top of the book cases with Humpty Dumpty.
People would stop by and say, “Oh what a neat collection” and soon I was receiving lots of cookie jars as gifts from friends and relatives. I eventually ended up with about 28 cookie jars before I had to break down and tell people I didn’t want to collect cookie jars because they were taking up all my space. (They aren’t like collecting thimbles or miniatures!)
Then I got the chance to bring Little Red Riding Hood hom
e from my brothers house. She is my most favorite, important cookie jar of all because she originally belonged to my Grandma Matheson and I can remember being offered cookies from her when I was as young as 5 years old. I don’t know how she survived all those years at Grandma’s without getting chipped … my strawberry got chipped very quickly by my children! So she quickly earned a place up out of reach.
I loved all o
f my cookie jars but I had to start giving them away because I needed the cupboard space (by then I had run out of places to display them so they were inside of cupboards being useless.) I still have about ten of them and I know I’m going to have to part with some of those soon … but how can I give away this Monk from my sister (Thou shalt not steal cookies), or the one that looks like four books on a book shelf given to me by my dearest old friend that I sat with as she died, or my big fat gray cat that Lynn bought me for Valentine’s Day years ago, or the old cowboy from Dad. See the problem I’ve got here? Then I’ve got the bottom of a bear that my dear friend, Mary’s, children gave me after she died … I use that one as a flower vase because she meant so much to me. One of my most special ones is an ice cream cone that is all glued together … it was shipped to me by two of the girls I taught in church who had grown up and joined the marines … it got broken on its way here from overseas where they were serving. Oh, and don’t forget the old clown head Mom used to fill with cookies when we were kids.
So, there you go … what’s a person to do?
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Aunt Edna, I have to tell you, I was so impressed with your cookie jar collection when we came to your house when I was little that I told my mom I wanted to collect cookie jars too. I go one (a nutracker that coincided with my nutcracker collection) and realized I had an even bigger space issue since I didn’t even have my own place yet.
Needless to say, that collection never happened for me.
Gosh, look at the stories that live in all those jars! And you’re a consumate story teller. No wonder you have so much trouble giving them away. So don’t! Let somebody else do it on down the line. Isn’t that why we have children?!
It happens … just like the baby bib that says, “SPIT HAPPENS”. We get one or two of a ‘thing’ and pretty soon It Happens … our collection has begun. Mine is music boxes … and all because I loved the ones grandma M. used to have. Alice is right … let the kids worry about it one day … he he.