Contents

The box is Italian and when opened it sings Edelweiss. On our honeymoon, I found myself hunting for the perfect one. One with the combination of shape, design, color and music that I wanted to bring home with me as a souvenir. But it was surprisingly difficult and we came home empty handed.

Six months later, we spent Christmas morning in our 500-square foot apartment just south of Boston, knelt side-by-side in front of a two-foot tall tree in a pot, decorated with miniature bows by the people at our local Home Depot. And my husband surprised me with this:

He even requested that they change the tune when he couldn't find exactly what we'd looked for. The ironic thing is that I don't even wear much jewelry - don't even keep my wedding rings in the box. (I keep those on a wooden fruit stand from Guatemala that's beside our stove - the obvious place for one's most expensive jewelry.)

And so when I came across a Meme (while procrastinating, of course) that asks you to open your jewelry box to the world, I thought it was inapplicable to me. But still, I opened the box - if only to listen to Edelweiss.

Here is what I saw:

Contents, originally uploaded by Mellahoney.

It was more like a memory box than a jewelry box, though most of the contents are 'jewelry', I suppose, most have some specific memory attached. The watch in the center was a hand-me-down gift from my aunt just days before I left for Romania, for example. You can click on the picture for details about the rest of the objects in my box - there are notes attached.