When it's time to take down the tree and pack the decorations, there are fresh memories of the holidays going into storage, as well. For some, those memories were made around secondhand trees.

You can find shelves filled with packages of shiny, color-coordinated ornaments in every big-box store. It's easy and relatively affordable to create a polished, commercial-looking tree decked for the holidays.

So, why would anyone consider a tree adorned in secondhand items from a thrift store?

Because sometimes, the feeling evoked by a Christmas display is more important than how it looks.

That's what shoppers often discover at thrift stores, many of which stock up to a third of their shops with holiday decor during this season.

Kristy Lance, retail vice president for St. Louis' MERS Goodwill, says people come looking for deals, but also for vintage or unique items.

"In a lot of stores, I hear 'I haven't seen this ornament since I was a child at my grandmother's,'" Lance said. She's met with customers who decide to put up a tree in every room in their house because the ones at Goodwill are so affordable.

Anne Carr, store manager at Miriam Switching Post in Brentwood, Missouri, has heard similar feedback from shoppers.

"They want to create a unique tree that not everyone else has," she said.

Most thrift stores collect gently used Christmas decor year-round. The Switching Post closes the store one Sunday in mid-November, and the staff goes through hundreds of boxes of that year's treasures. The trove might include Baccarat or Waterford ornaments, to be sold at a third of their retail value. This year, they had hundreds of boxes of Hallmark Keepsake ornaments, all in the original boxes, including one of Joe Namath from a retired series.

Linda Estell has been a volunteer at the Switching Post for 18 years. She takes the lead in creating some of the themed, fully decorated trees for sale in the store. She doesn't purchase a single new item to create a tree displayed in the store; they're entirely put together with donated items.

She starts by taking stock of everything they have, and selecting items for the staff to work around. It can require thinking outside the box. One year, they created a hot pink and purple Barbie tree with dolls attached. They've hung tiny teacups from trees before, too, and created a snowman tree once. This year, Estell found a Christmas train set that caught her eye. She used wire to attach the individual train sections to the branches, along with pieces of the tracks and even stuffed bears in plaid outfits. She added old-fashioned lightbulbs and some children's books to complete the vintage toy-themed tree. A plaid tablecloth filled in for a tree skirt.

Besides being fun displays, having a tree pre-decorated can take a load off some shoppers' minds. A few years ago, a newly divorced man wandered into the store, worried about what he would do for a tree when his children visited for the holidays. Estell remembers him finding one of the decorated ones in the store and saying, "Perfect! I have a tree now."

For socially conscious shoppers and parents wanting to model a lesson for their children, thrift shopping offers the added plus of supporting a charitable cause. Goodwill's proceeds go to job-training programs, and the Switching Post donates all proceeds to the Miriam School, a local private school for kids with learning disabilities.

Besides, it's just fun to explore at these shops.

"There's an element of a treasure hunt to it, " Carr said. "We move a lot of merchandise every day. There's something new every day."

Well, technically, it isn't "new."

But new can be overrated. After all, the holiday spirit is as old as time.

Water makes sound.

It crashes, it swishes, it drips, it cascades, it pours.

Amanda Eshelman, a typical 13-year-old in many ways, had had no idea.

The first time she flushed the toilet after getting a hearing aid in her right ear a year ago, she jumped back, startled by the sound. The hearing aid brought back sounds that had been getting softer for years.

She was deaf in her left ear. She had been born with some hearing in that ear, maybe enough to hear a lawnmower right next to her, but it gradually faded away almost a decade ago. Her right ear started deteriorating when she started middle school two years ago.

Amanda, a bubbly teenager, found ways to cope with the gradual hearing loss. She sat in the front in her classrooms. She asked her friends to repeat themselves often. She focused on watching people's mouths when they talked, so she could read their lips.

When she got a hearing aid in seventh grade, she picked a hot pink one. Suddenly, it was like everyone was talking into a microphone. She could hear the dishwasher, the water when she turned the shower on and that crazy sound the toilet made when it flushes.

It was easier for Amanda to hear her teachers at school, but she still couldn't understand anyone when there was a crowd, like in the cafeteria or in the hallways. She couldn't tell where sounds were coming from, either. And every few months, the sounds became fainter. The hearing aid had to be cranked up as her hearing declined.

Her mother, Betsy, worried about what would happen if the hearing in Amanda's right ear kept worsening. Would her child's world become completely silent?

Amanda had already started preparing for that. She joined a club at school to learn sign language, and taught herself even more by watching YouTube videos of popular songs being signed. She, her twin sister and three friends performed Fall Out Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" in sign language for the talent show.

Looking for options, her parents took her to see a specialist at St. Louis Children's Hospital, who suggested she might be a candidate for a cochlear implant, which can restore hearing in a different way than a hearing aid. It requires surgery to implant an electrode inside the inner ear, which attaches magnetically to a sound processor worn outside the head.

But there was a risk the implant wouldn't improve Amanda's hearing at all because her left ear had been "dead" for so long.

"It's your choice," her father said.

In typical Amanda fashion, she wanted to go for it.

"What else am I supposed to do?" she said. "Sit in my room and cry all day? I can't do that."

In mid-November, she had surgery to get the Cochlear company's newest implant and sound processor, called Kanso. Two weeks later was activation day, when audiologist Amy Carlson would turn the system on to see how much sound her auditory nerve and brain could pick up. Whereas people with normal hearing hear sounds acoustically, the implant transmits electronic pulses, which can be difficult to adjust to for patients who have had hearing before.

Amanda had picked out a hot pink cover for the sound processor that magnetically attaches to her head.

"Are you sure you want pink?" her father had asked. She was very sure.

I spoke with Amanda prior to activation, and asked what she might want to hear if it worked.

She thought about the question and remembered a pair of socks she wears on Christmas Day. They have little bells on them, and her mom can hear her wherever she walks around the house.

"I can't hear the jingle bells," she said. "I don't remember ever hearing it."

When she walked into the hospital room where Carlson would turn on the device, Amanda was nervous and excited.

While the audiologist began the testing, Betsy's gaze, full of worries and hopes, was fixed on her child's face. She remembered holding Amanda in her lap during hearing tests as a young child. Betsy could hear the beeps through the headphones her daughter wore for those tests, but Amanda wouldn't respond. She had wanted to poke her daughter to get to raise her hand and show she could hear. But she couldn't.

This time, it was different.

Carlson turned it on.

Amanda's hands flew to her mouth. Her laugh mixed with her tears, which mixed with her mother's laughter and tears.

"Hi, baby," her mother said, grabbing her in a tight embrace.

"I like it," Amanda said, through her tears. "It's a lot better than I thought it was going to be."

She heard the sounds of the fan and the heating system in the room; even the overhead lights made a slight buzzing sound. Her own voice sounded so strange to her. Carlson explained that there was a long road ahead of gradually increasing the sound levels, and retraining the brain to focus on new sounds and block out background noises.

Amanda could hardly wait to start. The next week, she was sitting in the living room, surrounded by her siblings with the television on, like she had on countless afternoons before. There was so much sound all around her. She turned to her mom and said, "I didn't realize how quiet my world had become."

It had hit her when she walked inside their home after the activation. Their cat, Geno, was waiting by the front door.

He was purring. That's what purring sounds like, she thought. It was louder than she expected.

When he ran off, she heard another new sound.

He had a bell on his collar.

"I could hear it," she said.

A jingle bell.

When I coerced my family into playing a new card game designed to nurture our empathy, the first question was: How do you win?

"Oh my God, it's not that kind of game," I said.

We're a competitive bunch. Let's just say I've been uninvited from some family game nights due to unsportsmanlike behavior involving a Taboo buzzer. Also, there may have been loud allegations of cheating leveled against certain children based on flimsy circumstantial evidence.

Never mind that. This PeaceMakers game, developed by Suzanne Tucker, a St. Louis mom and parent educator, was bound to increase our compassion and peacefulness toward one another. Who couldn't use a little more of that in their families, especially this time of year?

I was a little skeptical when the game arrived. It's a colorful deck of 42 cards, with a cute animal illustration and a mantra printed on each one. Granted, the target age group for the game is 3 to 9 years old. I was going to try this exercise with a 14-year-old girl who believes in her heart that she is unspeakably cooler than anyone in her family, and an 11-year-old boy who would rather be playing baseball or video games than indulging my empathy-building projects. Oh, and a spouse who likes to win family game nights nearly as much as I do.

The cutesy deck seemed stacked against us.

There are no specific rules, according to Tucker. Everyone takes a turn drawing a card, reading it aloud and then saying something about what they've read. You can relate it to an experience you've had recently, a thought or desire, or even sing, dance or draw in response.

It's less a game, and more a reflection time.

My son drew a card that said, "I stick with things and get things done." He mentioned a school assignment that had taken some time, and we agreed this card described him well.

I drew a card that said, "I am a leader." I added: "Yes, I am a leader in trying to get this family to do things even though no one really listens to me." That probably wasn't in the "positive affirmation" spirit, but Tucker had told me there was no "wrong" way to play.

The girl drew a card that said, "My mistakes help me learn and grow." She said she had nothing to say about that. In fact, she could not think of a single thing to offer in response.

"Just say something," I said, through gritted teeth.

"Fine! You don't have to get so mad!" she responded. She conceded that she may have made some mistakes before, though obviously not as many as the rest of us.

It was my husband's turn, and his card said to sing a song, an instruction he wholeheartedly embraced as he began to serenade us. My son and I cracked up laughing, and my daughter bolted.

"Oh my God, I'm outta here," she said on her way out.

We played a few more rounds, and I have to admit that it was fun and sweet to have a few minutes to say positive things out loud to one another.

Tucker says families can take five minutes to pull a card at breakfast before kids head to school, or perhaps at bedtime to create a moment of calm and sharing. It's a mindful way to bring focus and set an intention.

She launched her idea for PeaceMakers via Kickstarter in March and doubled her fundraising goal within three weeks, raising $7,000. She's shipped boxes all over the world, to more than 20 countries, and is working to get the game into various school districts. Her goal is to help children learn to self-regulate their emotions, and ultimately to see an end to shame, blame and pain in children.

Helping children (and adults) learn to identify their emotions is a critical part of that process.

"Name it to tame it," she said. "Feel it to heal it."

Studies shows that emotionally intelligent people are more successful in life, and high EQ can be more valuable than raw intelligence and experience. Decades of research suggests emotional intelligence is a critical factor that distinguishes successful leaders and star performers in the workplace.

Beyond the skill-building aspect of this game, I enjoyed the experience of just joking around with and listening to the people I cherish.

My husband agreed, although he added, "If that game had a winner, I would have totally won."

Embodying the spirit of the game, I'm willing to say, sure, honey.

You totally won.