Christmas '09

Yes, I know most of you are spending today taking down the decorations and hauling the Christmas tree to the curb.  I'm just not quite ready for it to be over.  It's the fastest Christmas break on record for me.

We waited until after Samantha's birthday on the 5th to even put up the first decoration.  So many of the decorations we have were handmade by my grandmother and her family.  Like this ice skate ornament...I can't even count the sequins and beads and pins, but we have several in this category.  

Several more in the category with silk threads and more beads.  

I'm not terribly crafty in that way, but when my Mom passed onto us the family advent calendar I went to work replacing two  missing ornaments. What's cut off at the bottom is a dated pocket for each of the ornaments on the tree. Can you tell which ones we made this year? Honor, you can guess, but you don't win the prize, if you get it right!

Our Thanksgiving trip to Arkansas yielded one new decoration for us. I might even leave it up year round.  Anyone else have one of these?  

When you light the candles.....some scientific thing happens that makes the angels go round and the bells ting as they go.  (I won't really do science like this until 3rd or 4th grade, so don't judge my ignorance.)

We don't do a lot of outdoor decorations, but we've lived here almost five years and I've still not decorated the outside of our house like I want. I was raised with candles in every window, which I love, but we can't do that here since our dormers are fake. (Thankfully, our neighbors decorate their house just like I want, so I have a great view!)  I did decide to make new bows for the garland on our porch rail as the first step toward upgrading the outdoors. I thought this ribbon was just darlin'.  All candy cane striped and Christmassy and all.

Turns out, from the road all six of them look baby pink.  And stupid.  We're like the breast cancer awareness holiday house or something.  

This winter wonderland is across the tracks from some of your fancier models, but it tells some of the story of our holiday celebration.  

Again, Mrs. Claus was made many, many years ago.  (As evidenced by the joy detergent bottle that gives her fine curves.) The big house in the middle is the one Samantha made with my mom when she spent the first week of December in Kentucky.  It's been a great tradition for them to put up GiGi's decorations together and get to put together a gingerbread house without the "help" of her siblings.

The other houses were made when our adopted college friends came to visit.  If they hadn't come, I would've given up on those (&^$*^()! things.  One of the girls was going dress shopping for a big law school shindig the next night.  We rummaged through my old cocktail dresses for her and found the perfect red dress.  What she didn't know is that the shindig was a ruse for her boyfriend to propose!  I love that.  If she ever sends photos, I'll post them here.

The cereamic reindeer was from Samantha's birthday. She chose one friend to go with her to the pottery place to paint anything they wanted.  It was a terrific touch to our winterscape.  It was also a lot cheaper than hosting a dozen squealing girls at our house for pink icing and well, pink everything!

And, the little marshmallow looking snowmen and reindeer came from our small group Christmas party where the kids did crafts, ate snowman ice cream and the grown ups swapped white elephant gifts.  We walked away with the best gift...a pair of IU tickets to the Big Ten opener.  I don't know who ended up with the flying monkey. 

The lone tree in the scene is from the day we learned about the tradition of the Christmas tree.  We used sugar cones, green icing and mini-M&Ms to make the trees. You can imagine why there's only one there now.

So, you guys just box and wrap and vacuum away.  I'm going to reminisce a few more days about our very fast, very full, very fun Christmas holiday.