These are the three ceramic camels that come out of their box for the day of Epiphany, January 6th, in remembrance of the Three Wise Men visiting the Christ Child.
They once sat on a thrift store shelf as I moved up close to them where they looked me in the eye and said, take us home with you.
I moved on but before we left I told RH I wanted to show him something. I took him over to them and said "I don't know why but I can't leave them here."
He said, "Do you really need three of them? Why don't you just buy the two large ones?"
"And leave the third one here alone? All by herself? I can't do that."
And so three camels that someone had probably made in ceramics class came home with me. And when Christmas came I decided to save them for Epiphany. On the day before, the day of Twelfth Night, I had packed away most of the Christmas decor, leaving up the fresh tree that was in the old green ice bucket that had sat in our picnic shelter for years.
How many years had I begged RH to use it as our Christmas tree stand, without realizing how complicated it would be?
And so the Christmas tree still stood proudly on Epiphany of 2016, far past the date when most people take theirs down. Perhaps I somehow sensed that it would be our last Christmas tree at Valley View.
In our downsizing move to Florida, the green ice bucket went to this home...
And became a very pretty flower stand for the front porch.
And in this, our second Christmas back home in Tennessee, the Epiphany camels just couldn't seem to find a place and found its way to a new home too.
That's right, the Wise Men's camels went home to what was Valley View but is now Courtney and Zack's The Farmhouse!
Never fear, the third member of the camels is near these two, on a table of books about Tennessee, because this is the quiet, scholarly room known as the Tennessee Room.
And my epiphany on this Day of Epiphany, and our second year anniversary at Home Hill, is that letting go of things when it's time is a good thing. And that maybe 2019 will find me more ready to pass other things on to someone who will give them a good home.
Or to donate them to a thrift store where one day they will look someone in the eye and say take me home with you.
