Christmas Tributes at 9/11 Memorial

Source: Fox News.

With the first Christmas approaching since the 9/11 Memorial opened last September 11, holiday greens, wreaths, red berries, bows, and Christmas stockings are appearing to mark the season.

There's the little glass jar filled with sand from a special Oahu beach, left for the young Hawaii native, and the collection of red cotton scarves for "the man in the red bandana" who led so many others to safety but never made it out himself.

Elsewhere in the tapestry of tributes left at the 9/11 Memorial are notes in children's handwriting saying things like "Daddy, we miss you," first responder badges from around the world, family pictures, flags, sealed letters, flight attendant wings, rosaries, even a CD of hits by The Who.

Maile Rachel Hale, for example, was a 26-year-old Honolulu native and Wesleyan graduate working in the financial industry in Boston who was attending a conference at Windows on the World on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Next to her name, visitors left a collection of what she loved: a glass jar of sand with a label saying it was from Malaekahana Beach, a pair of ballet slippers to reflect her passion for dance, a small bag of M&Ms because she was a chocolate fanatic, several leis, a collection of notes and a soccer ball signed "For Maile from Elise."

At Welles Crowther's name, it's the red bandanas – at least three of them. On 9/11, when Flight 175 hit the South Tower at the 78th floor, a number of survivors said a young man appeared with a red bandana around his face and personally escorted or carried them off that floor and got them started to floors below. Then he kept going back up to help other people.

For LeRoy W. Homer, Jr., co-pilot of Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field, someone left a small balsa wood airplane with a paper flower attached.

And Who fan John Joseph Ryan was honored with a CD of their songs inscribed "I think of you every time I hear your favorites! Miss you! PR"

At the Survivor Tree, a callery pear so named because it survived the 9/11 attack, then was nursed back to health and replanted – someone left a red-ribboned wreath with badges from eight different first responder units, some as far afield as Wyoming and Rhode Island.