A Bit Upset

[Hound dog]

Travis helped me decorate tonight and that went well I suppose. It's not easy when decorations were also stored in separate places (mostly random) all over the house. Tree went up easily, pop it out of the box, slip the 3 sections together, move the branches down and plug in the lights. lol Love it. But there are things missing. I've been doing this for 28 friggin years. I know what I have in the way of xmas decor. (most of it I've had that long) Much of what is missing I can live without, just irks me, as now my small tree is somewhat sparse as far as ornaments go and several "special ornaments" are missing. One my sister gave me when Nichole was a baby from Hawaii for one, it goes on the top branch every single year. Not this year because I can't find the darn thing.

mother in law manager is still missing. This has become quite a mystery which has me rather furious. The manger was given to me years ago when mother in law gave me the dingingroom furniture and I started doing xmas dinner here. Yet last year it came up missing. husband swore he looked everywhere.

Now this manger set is kept in a box it's been in forever, I mean the friggin box is older than easy child for Pete's sake. It's in a cardboard "crate" type box from a company that husband's great aunt used to ship florida oranges to mother in law. It's not a small box, as it's not a small manager scene.

My manger set is smaller and is kept in a smaller box similar to the one mother in law's manager set is in. (since her box held up so well I decided to use one for mine too)

I can find mine just fine. Found and used it last year because I couldn't find mother in law's. Found it this year too.

It's not in the attic. Been completely through the attic. So far we've not spotted it in the family room either. Actually, it's bugging me so much I just went out and looked again, if it's there, it's somehow in another box because I'm definitely not seeing it.

Now this is special not only because it was mother in law's manger set, but because father in law hand made the manger/stable part himself to look very similar to the way it would have looked at the time. It was so lovely and of course irreplaceable. I am so ticked.

Nor is there any possible way someone took it. My kids wouldn't think of it, and no way katie or M could've gotten something that big out of the house.

Being both furious and stumped is not really a good combination.

On a side note..............the house is fully decorated.

 

[rejectedmom]

Well congrats on completing the decorating task. As far as the manger goes something smells fishey to me. I'm thinking it went to another family member without your aproval and no one wants to fess up. That happendto me with an heirloom platter that was my mother's. We all suspect my cousin took it but she died and now we will never know.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Or... its like my stuff. It ends up in a box inside a bigger box inside something else... and you only find it when you are NOT looking for it.

I don't like it whan that happens, either!

 

[Hound dog]

Nope. No way it went to someone else. easy child and Nichole would both tell me if they had it. I know easy child doesn't because she didn't want mine because she has her own. I know Nichole doesn't because she was hoping I'd pass mine down to her last year because she finally had room for it. Travis lives with me, so well ...... lol Katie and M weren't here until last year and it was never found to be put out, plus Katie hasn't seen it since she was a small child so she doesn't even know what it looks like. No other family member got it because it was given to me years before mother in law passed. I've been putting it out until last year.

It could be inside another box.......what box I have no clue, as it's fairly big. Possible it is also buried under or behind something and we just can't see it as the family room is slowly emptying out it's just no where near done.

What I'm too scared to consider is that it possibly got thrown out somehow. But I dunno how that would be as we check everything before it goes out the backdoor on purpose, knowing how husband "stored" stuff. husband wouldn't have thrown it out because it meant a lot to him.

It's just been driving me nuts since last year. How on earth can something so big get misplaced?? ugh!

 

[InsaneCdn]

Lisa - my bsmt looks worse than your family room... and you wouldn't BELIEVE the stuff I've found in the last couple months that I was NOT looking for... stuff I gave up looking for.
And its been... inside something else, or under-and-behind, or some weird corner...
Its just STUPID.

Keep shoveling. Its the only answer.
(and then you'll find out its in the furnace room or some other such out-of-mind spot)

 

[donna723]

I'm glad you finally got it all put up! I always feel better when that chore is done. I have lots of decorations but the last couple of years I haven't put it all up, just the tree, because we're not going to be here at Christmas anyway.

And I know exactly what you mean, how frustrating it is when family heirlooms come up "missing". Not Christmas decorations but I have a couple of things that I really wanted that have just disappeared. I moved to this house eight years ago and these things disappeared before I ever packed up to move here so I know they are gone. One was a beautiful old vase that my father brought back from Japan after WW2. I'm not sure if it was glass or many coats of shiny lacquer(?) but it was a deep cranberry color with flowers painted on it. It was absolutely gorgeous! At the old house I knew exactly where it was and then noticed one day that it was gone so I had no idea how long it had been missing. I quizzed both kids, telling them I wouldn't be upset if it had gotten broken, I just wanted to know so I could quit looking for it ... both swore they knew nothing about it and I believe them. I wouldn't be surprised if my older brother hadn't taken it when they came here for my mom's funeral. There were a few other items of my mom's that I KNOW that he took with no discussion with our younger brother or me. The other is some very old family pictures that my mom had stuffed into a cardboard box in her closet. These photographs went back to my mother's childhood and before, some dating back to the early 1900's. They were all together in one box and I had looked at them many times and now at least half of them are just gone! There were some that I just loved, pictures of my grandmother and her sisters in a park, wearing the long white lace dresses and the Gibson Girl hairdos, and my grandfather and great uncles wearing the old fashioned straw hats ... there were several of them and now they're just GONE! And I still can't imagine whatever happened to them and it still bothers me.

 

[DammitJanet]

I lost a ton of my moms stuff from her house when we moved her here. I know she had them at here house when she lived there but when it came time to pack here house up, they werent there. Like her sterling silver set. Gone. What woman who had been upper middle class all her life didnt have a silver set? It was in a beautiful mahogany box. I have the box...no set. Someone took her silver. It wasnt me or mine. Someone took her for about 15K that I know about. Maybe more. Oddly enough, Cory has completely left my mom's stuff alone. I dont know if he thinks it isnt valuable or if he thinks it too valuable. Either way, good enough.

 

[Liahona]

I'm sorry you can't find it. We have lost things as well. Sometimes it takes years for it to turn up, but mostly it does. There has only been one exception. Glad you could rule out any of the kids taking it. That is always a relief.

 

[AnnieO]

Oh, do I know this feeling!!!

But... I found a special ornament last weekend that I hadn't seen in about 6 years - since we moved into the house. I figured someone had swiped it. Nope...

 

[Lothlorien]

Stuff like that makes me nuts too! husband has broken things and not told me and then a year later when I go looking for them, he'll tell me it was broken and he had to toss it out. Grr! Just wondering if someone broke it and just not fessing up.