Hand-painted ornaments among treasured holiday fare
Staff writer
When guests enter the home of Cheryl Stang and her family on South Cedar Street, Marion, they are welcomed with southern hospitality and the feeling of a close-knit family.
Beautifully decorated Christmas trees are throughout the home, but the family focuses on the most important aspect of the season — the birth of Jesus Christ.
“The religious part is important. That’s where the focus really should be,” Cheryl said.
Cheryl has eight children, with six living at home, and all have been homeschooled. Decorating some of the trees are projects of the children.
“My daughters’ tree in their room is decorated with hand-painted, ceramic ornaments,” Cheryl said. The girls did the project a couple of years ago as part of a 4-H project and shown at Marion County Fair.
The Stang children are Brandon, 23, a student at Kansas State University and a member of Kansas National Guard; Jessica, 21, who is serving with the U.S. Army, currently stationed at Fort Campbell and will be deployed in August to Bagdad; Jeremiah, 17, Joseph, 16, Nathanial, 15, Victoria, 13, Cassandra, 11, and Shepherd, 8.
A tree in the family office where the children do some class work on the computer also has hand-painted ornaments and were entered in the county fair.
In Jeremiah’s room, a tree with patriotic colors of red, white, blue, and silver, also include stars, snowflakes, and other novelty ornaments.
The living room tree is adorned with angels, bells, and pinecones in traditional colors of red, white, green, and gold. Many of the ornaments are gifts to Cheryl and her family, Cheryl said.
The family focuses on spending time together including attending The Messiah each year at Tabor College. Sunday evening they attended Vespers at Marion Presbyterian Church and the children participated in the Christmas program.
Beautifully wrapped gifts are distributed among the trees.
“It looks like we have a lot of presents,” Cheryl said with a smile, but with eight children, there are going to be a lot of gifts.
“The children give gifts to each other. They get to open one gift Christmas Eve,” she said.
Other gifts are opened Christmas day.
Stockings are hung along the walls and hallways.
“They always open those first,” Cheryl said.
This Christmas all of the Stang children will be together when Brandon returns from college and Jessica comes home on a 10-day leave.
“It will be wonderful,” Cheryl said.