Although not seasonally appropriate, I've been thinking about the children's book The Littlest Angel. I had the book and must have watched the 1969 TV production - E.G. Marshall was God! Cab Calloway was Gabriel! Connie Stevens was the Flying Mistress! (the thought of which makes me unable to suppress a snicker) But the thing I remember most clearly is the sense of wonder at a child (ok, an angel) having a small box of possessions that were his only treasures. As a member of one of the first generations to be over-indulged with toys, I wanted to have a collection of objects that would fit into a tin and that I would value above all else. Not that I really wanted to give them away, even to the Christ child. I think the whole lesson of selfless giving sort of passed me by. It was more about me (of course) and finding a set of such extraordinary items that would bring me a sense of joy every time I looked at them.

[It didn't dawn on me until much later that the angel (who was four years, six months, five days, seven hours, and forty-two minutes old when he became the littlest angel), had to have died to have become an angel. I knew he was homesick, but didn't quite get that part of the message.]

Anyway, I'm figuring that this attachment to a story from my childhood is the root cause of my need to save every tin, small jar, tiny box, and other palm-size-or-smaller-container, the volume of which will eventually fill my house and cause me to be the central character in a humiliating story on the cheesily sensationalistic local news. Oh, the ignominy.