Celebrating milestones

Getting from Easter to Flag Day takes a long time. We get sick of cute little chicks and baby bunnies, no matter how carefully we avoid tackiness. Our house is not allowed to look like a grade school classroom. Until last year, I didn’t know how to bridge that gap. Since we got married and graduated high school and college in May, why not get out the stuff from those milestone events in May? So I did.

This is our cake topper. My aunt and uncle used it, then my parents. When it came my turn, the couple was a little battered. I cleaned the topper and touched up its paint. I enjoyed using this precious connection to my heritage. The rose on lace is one of our pew decorations and the candles — but not the candlesticks — are from our wedding also. The silver tray, which is out all the time, was a wedding gift from our jeweler.

This table decoration is our unity candle set.

I was required to buy my first college graduation regalia — mortarboard, gown, hood and tassel — and I kept them. My hood hangs behind its degree. I used a half hitch to tie the associated tassel onto the diploma frame’s hangar. Unfortunately, Hubby has lost his college graduation tassel. He hung it on his rear view mirror and it disintegrated. Hubby’s picture with his parents at his graduation stands on the shelf. The back of his high school diploma is shown on the room divider above his college degree.

Dad graduated from college the same weekend I graduated kindergarten. He had gotten a three-year diploma the year before. My mother preserved his tassels and honor cords, while I kept my tassel, which she had made. She made my graduation gown and mortarboard, but those have long since been lost. I printed a copy of our picture together and matted it for the center of the shadowbox, then arranged the cords and tassels around the picture, using straight pins to hold them. I wish I could have made the picture an 8X10, but the slide was too degraded for that.

My high school diploma, tassel and senior picture stand on the room divider opposite Hubby’s. Unfortunately, we do not have his senior picture. I hung each tassel on the pillar next to the diploma. Each girl in my senior class received a real and crocheted rose at graduation. My crocheted rose sits next to my senior picture.

My mortarboards sit atop our china cabinet. Displaying an even number of objects is not good design, but I could not think what I should place between the mortarboards. I had to buy both high school and college mortarboards, but Hubby never had to buy any. Lucky him! Too bad we didn’t preserve my handmade kindergarten mortarboard, but one can’t have everything in this life!