By Susan Govern
There’s an old saying: “All that glitters is not gold.” It would seem, however, at Christmas time the people who manufacture glitter have found a goldmine. There is glitter sold at craft stores in small tubes, in large jars, in buckets, in wheelbarrows…ok, I may be getting a little carried away but you get the idea…there’s a LOT of glitter out there this time of year. It’s used by people who want to make there own cards or ornaments (or both), it’s used by teachers on class projects and even the greeting card companies use it by the truckload in making Christmas cards. It’s shiny and makes an ornament or card stand out just a bit from the ordinary. And I HATE it!!!!!!!!!
I never used to give glitter a second thought, until I had kids; specifically kids who made fun little artsy projects in pre-school using glue and glitter. These lovely keepsake objects of art (and there have been lots of them) made by my children through the years have driven me to the point of wanting to scream now whenever I encounter “glitter” in any form.
Have you ever tried to find an entire box of fancy ornaments only to discover that 99 percent of the boxes have ornaments made with some amount of glitter on them? Just opening a box to get them out to hang on the tree results in a shower of glitter all over your hands, clothes and carpeting. I have tried sticky lint rollers, vacuum sweepers and washed my hands repeatedly only to discover tiny glints of glitter still remain.
And not only can glitter be found on all kinds of holiday decorations, but the Christmas cards are also “glitterized”. I try to buy ones without the shiny stuff, but once in a while a box of cards will be just too pretty to pass up. Later as I’m writing a note inside, or just signing our names, I run into the problem of my pen skipping because of microscopic crumbs of glitter that have found their way to the inside of the card. It’s also not fun to lick an envelope after sliding a card with glitter into it. Yuck!
After receiving so many cards over the last several years that are glitter enhanced, my family and I have started opening the envelopes over our kitchen garbage can. If we see glitter on the card…we slide it out of the envelope, shake the card over the can and set it aside.
I used to try and keep those cards displayed all in one place to minimize the spread of the itsy-bitsy tiny shiny stuff, but I finally hit on a solution three years ago…Saran Wrap!
Christmas cards we receive with glitter get special treatment in our house. We read the greeting inside the card, then I write in a corner on the front cover who the card is from before wrapping the card in just the right amount of Saran Wrap. Problem solved…we can enjoy the pretty card without getting “glitterized” on our hands anytime we look at the card. I consider this small solution a win in my war on glitter.
Somehow, though, each year after the holidays are over and it’s time to put away the decorations, take down the tree and recycle the greeting cards, I discover in looking around that there is a certain dullness to the rooms. Everything looks so plain and boring.
Dare I say it…ok…I admit it…I find myself actually missing the shiny stuff that reflected the lights of the tree. I miss the glittering specks covering the front of one of my houses in my Christmas village that made it look like new fallen snow. I even miss the cards that had so much silver glitter they looked three-dimensional.
With the holiday decorations put away, I get ready to do some cleaning and I reflect on how pretty all that glitter actually made the holiday decorations look. I catch myself smiling at the memory of a card or two that were especially pretty because of how glitter was used by the artists who made them.
Then I start to dust the shelves and vacuum the carpeting…and see the mess left behind of glitter that has made its way into corners and even into the kitchen (now that’s a mystery how it got into the corners of the stove).
With gritted teeth, I continue cleaning and plot how I will win the war on glitter next Christmas.
