The Mr bought me this countdown ornament from Hallmark this year. He said the little girl on the commercial reminded him of me and my obsessive countdown to Saint Nick's arrival. We both watched it eagerly at midnight on Christmas Eve/Day to see what would happen. Would Santa dance? Would it blow up? Would it play a jingle? Nope. It spelled out Merry Christmas and then flashes Ho Ho Ho. We made sure to take the battery out of it because it never shuts off. The Santa reminds me of Father Time from one of the Rankin Bass specials.
This one's a little dark, sorry about that. But that was the one we got at Graceland this year. It has the gates of Graceland then the mansion behind it and says Graceland below it. I'm not too huge a fan of these thin brass ornaments but you should've seen some of the ones we had to choose from. This was the best they had to offer.
This is an ornament I got when I was about 5 or 6 from my Grandpa and his wife on St. Nicholas Day. Their family did the tradition of putting your shoes on the porch and you'd get something in them. I'd never heard of this so when I spent the night with them that night, I tore down the stairs the next morning to find a patchwork ornament for the tree. When I told him about that in a letter I wrote him before he died a month later he said he couldn't believe I remembered that.
This Nutcracker is from Woodstock, IL. Aka- Punxsutawney in the movie Groundhog Day. This place is about an hour north of Chicago and believe me when I tell you it has NOT changed in 20 years and it is like being on the set of the movie! You should absolutely go there. We picked this guy up in a store in the town square.
This otter is a memento from our trip to Carmel, CA for our anniversary. I love otters and was so happy to see some floating around when we went to Point Lobos to hike and enjoy the beautiful NoCal scenery. I love that it has the date of the year we went too.
This San Francisco ornament has all of the required scenes from the Golden Gate Bridge to the skyline to the Wharf sign, Painted Ladies and of course a trolley.
This one is my favorite from our 2010 trip to Chicago we purchased this ornament at Christkindlmarket. It's replica of "The Bean" (or Cloud Gate depending on who you ask) with the ice rink in front of it and the city reflected in it. It always makes me smile when I see it remembering the wonderful time we had and the great people we know there.
Our newest addition...a cupcake. How appropriate right? We purchased this at the Bent Fork Bakery in Highwood, IL in the northern burbs of Chicago. They have not only some of the best cupcakes we've had but I would trample old ladies to get their frosted ginger molasses cookie. Sooo amazing. I know it doesn't go with the color scheme at all but I couldn't resist it.
Sleep well until next year Christmas tree. You know I can't wait to see you again!
When do you usually put up and take down your Christmas decor?
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Usually right after Christmas. Like the 26th. This year I waited until Jan. 2nd.
ReplyDeleteWe "usually" put up and take down our Christmas decor whenever we get around to it. It varies widely from year to year. If it makes you feel any better, hubby just took the outside Christmas lights down this past weekend. We didn't take our tree down until last weekend, so, you're not too far behind! :-)
ReplyDeleteMy tree is still up, as are all my other Christmas decorations and I have many many Christmas decorations all over my house. It is a 2-week job to get them all up, and takes at least that long to get them all back down and put away. Why do I do that? Because I love Christmas evidently as much as you do! I too adore the decorations on both our trees and have many favorites. Just yesterday we took a day trip to Omaha (50 miles) and toured the Durham Western Heritage Museum there. I bought a Santa on a Train ornament as a remembrance of the day. It is appropriate since the museum is in the Union Pacific train depot!
ReplyDeleteHopefully I will soon enlist the help of hubby in carrying the storage boxes downstairs and can get my decorations down before Feb. 1. But there have been times in past years when at least some of the decorations were still up on March 1. But don't tell anybody else cause that's a little embarrassing.
I'm not much of a Christmas decorator (it's so much fun to put up and not so much fun to put away!) so I really enjoyed the photos of your hard work! Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely tree!
ReplyDeleteWe make a big deal out of Advent (in keeping with our faith, it's a season with it's own mystery and charm,so the actual 'Christmas'decorations don't go up until after the fourth Sunday of Advent... ... we have a Jesse Tree until then. Also in keeping with our faith tradition, the Christmas season isn't over until after Epiphany... so everything stays up at least until the 8th of January... but because I'm Ukranian, I take greast liberty and even though we don't celebrate according to the Gregorian calendar, I leave the tree up until after Ukrainian Epiphany... next Sunday! By then I actually feel ready to move on, LOL.
I can make you an honourary Ukrainian, if you'd like!
{{{{{{{{{ HUGS }}}}}}}}}
At least some portion of Christmas is up until January 6 (Epiphany), and usually most of it. We still have lights out on our deck and roof, but we turned them off (sadly) January 7--my Mr. hasn't had time to get to them and probably won't for a bit now that we have, oh, 5-6" of snow outside. LOVE your ornaments; we have been collecting at least one special dated ornament a year since we got married 31 years ago, so it's a big deal for me to pull out each one (in order, of course) and find a place for it on the tree. Sigh; I love Christmas, and it's always bittersweet putting things away.
ReplyDeleteI do remember one year having things still up on my birthday (today!) because we got sick and just had too much going on. That's a little too late even for me, I'm afraid!
We have four [artificial but very realistic] Christmas trees: a tall Daddy-tree, medium Mommy-tree, and two short kid-trees! We leave them up until March 22, which is our son's birthday and the beginning of spring. We enjoy how beautiful they are for a quarter of the year. We do have a large living room; if we didn't I would be anxious to reclaim the space.
ReplyDeleteI love your Christmas ornaments! Marc and I just started this year with giving ornaments in our stockings. I gave him a picture of us in a little stocking with "2011" on it. He gave me a weird little drummer boy and laughed when he gave it and said "by the time I went shopping, this was all that was left". HAHAHA!
ReplyDeleteChristmas comes down on King's Day here, Jan. 6 (called Feast of the epiphany or little Christmas in some regions). It's the first day of the Mardi Gras season down here, when King Cakes become available. I loved seeing your ornaments and how meaningful they are. That is awesome!
ReplyDeleteI love, love, love your ornaments! And the way the lights showed up in the pictures was so pretty---very nostalgic looking for me. We try to get the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving and tend to take down the tree the week after New Year's. This year the hubs put up his bay window village before Thanksgiving so mom could see it (since we go to her house for Christmas). That is still up but all the other decorations are down now. The village he'll take down a bit at a time. I personally like the "winter scene" during the drab months.
ReplyDelete