FO: Advent Ornament #9

Another ornament for the Advent Calendar. This is the Paper Chain.

I remember making these paper chains (with paper, not knitting) back in grade school. I can clearly remember being in first grade and carefully picking out my strips of colored construction paper and kind of snarkily thinking to myself that perhaps other children did not know how to use scissors, but I certainly did, and so it was a little demeaning to have to use pre-cut strips. (Actually, I probably thought something along the lines of "I know how to use scissors, not like these babies!" But, you know, time makes our memories a little more kind.)

I remember thinking how absolutely genius it was to join strips of paper like this. It was a chain, but we were making it out of flat paper. And making the links one at a time. Who thinks this stuff up? Brilliant!

I also remember being so focused on gluing those strips together in a recurring pattern, making sure the ends were firmly attached with that nasty white paste we used. And I remember Mrs. Bammerlin having to watch the kids who were known paste-eaters.

A side note: That paste, while having a pretty strong plastic-y aftertaste, was actually quite sweet on the palate at first. So you can hardly blame those kids, really. (Oh yes. I tasted it. Discreetly, because although I wondered, I also knew it was wrong.)


I was so proud of my chain. The whole time I made it, I was thinking about where it was going to hang at our house. I knew my mom would want to put it up somewhere where it could be seen and admired by everyone.

"Oh! Who is the expert artist who crafted this magnificent holiday decoration?!" They would gasp.

And my mom would beam with pride, "Why, Patty did, of course. She's so artistic."

But, you know that didn't happen. Oh, my mom would've put it up at the house. I have no doubt about that. And it would have come out of the Christmas decoration box every December until it fell apart. I'm fairly certain of that, too.

But no. Mrs. Bammerlin (I can still barely even speak the words) joined all our chains together and hung them in the classroom.

Good God! You know what that means, right? That means my beautiful work of art was joined on both ends to paper chains done by children who may not have put as much effort into their chains as I did. Yes, their chains were linked. Yes, they were colorful. But they simply were not the masterpieces mine was.

Never fear, though. When December rolled around in second grade, guess what we made?