I originally posted this paper pattern in December 2010 with the caption “Poor Man’s Christmas Ornament.”
I wrote
When my daughters were still quite young, we spent a snowbound weekend cutting out and assembling dozens of paper birds to decorate our first post-divorce Christmas tree. We used sturdy white Bristol board, and loops of shiny cord to tie the folded wings to the birds’ bodies and fashion hangers. More than twenty years later we still have about thirty of them left. They’ve long outlasted the box of cheap dime-store glass ornaments we bought that same year, but we tend to lose a few birds each year to visitors who want the pattern. The birds that are left have become heirlooms of our household – emblems of sweet times spent together, and of difficulties overcome and only dimly remembered.
I’m reposting today for those who might not have seen it then. Only now it’s almost 30 years later, and only a few of the original birds are left. Consider it an early holiday card from me to you.
Ornament design and graphics by me, first posted 19 December 2010.
Dithyramb 