Finding the Perfect Words

I love this paragraph from a Christmas story by Margaret Maron:

Amber nodded, and I looked at our hodgepodge tree. A crystal snowflake from Ben's sister hung beside a paper butterfly Ruth had painted when she was nine. Dangling from the branch below were a glass angel Ben and I had bought on our honeymoon and a Star of David that Ruth's best friend had made from gilded toothpicks. Everything on the tree was like that-a messy, three-dimensional scrapbook of times and places and people we had loved.

This is exactly how I think of our Christmas tree.