The Nail Clipper Collection Story

Why I Have A Nail Clipper Collection Hanging In My Hallway

[The Short version - I once made a mistake, and my children have spent more than a decade laughing at this mistake.]

Maybe someday when my grandchildren are selling off my possessions, they will wonder about this enough to google it, and maybe this page will come up with the answer.

Or more likely, they will already know, because my children are all smart alecks and will enjoy telling this one over and over.  This is a group of children who put on our  family google calendar, as a repeating event "Anniversary of the day mom almost booked a site in a gay clothing optional campground."  [to be clear, they had electricity and allowed dogs, and that was my criteria! So I missed a few key words in the description.  It was also very cold, I'm pretty sure everyone would have kept their clothes on.  I'm certain it  would have been fine.  ]

Another repeating calendar event is "the time Nate said stove top is just as good as moms stuffing."  

So now you know a little about the family you are dealing with here. 

In 2008 we took a family trip to Niagara Falls.  This was a big trip for us, we never had a lot of money, and most of our family vacations were spent in tents.  [My oldest, who had been hiking to impressive rural waterfalls since he was an infant in a carrier on my back, at the overlook of Niagra Falls remarked "is this it?"  Oh, the wonder...  so worth the financial sacrifice to make sure we took the children with us...  ]

ANYWAY, as we were hurrying to leave, I wanted to buy a Christmas ornament to commemorate our trip.  In a rush, I was probably put off by the gift store prices, and settled on a smaller metal option nearby that looked to me like a nice little metal Christmas ornament.

Nope.  Upon closer inspection, it was a pair of nail clippers.

WHY are commemorative nail clippers a thing?  And why were they hanging right beside the Christmas ornaments in the gift shop?

Our children loved this.  They have never let me live it down.  They joked for years that some day I could have an entire Christmas tree of nail clippers.

And then they grew up. Two went into the military, one studied abroad and took a cross country road trip with her aunt...  and everywhere they have traveled, they have searched out and brought back commemorative nail clippers.  Dubai. Qatar.  Georgia (the country, not the state).  Hawaii.  Seattle, Yellowstone, Ireland, Texas, California...  

I am not going to research this, but it's actually possible I have one of the most extensive world wide nail clipper collections.  Because there may not be a lot of competition.  You'd think.  I'm not going to google it.  I'm just not. 

My eldest son, who has provided the majority of this collection, is currently stationed in England.  If he gets home for Christmas one year soon, I think I have enough of these to put a small Christmas tree in the guest room.  In the meantime, they hang in my hallway.  :-)