Art, Family, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Christmas Style

32 Comments

Our tree is up and decorated, and I am taking a chance and putting out the Christmas  pyramids this year. You can see them in the header photo. The cats have left them alone thus far. I will keep my fingers crossed.  I think we will put the cats in the basement when we light the pyramid candles. I had to put the straw goats up high, since our grey cat likes to chew the wheat berries off their beards.

I never have had a themed tree, one with color coordinated glass balls and bows. No, ours is a mix up of glass, straw,  wood and china ornaments. Some were my parents before I was born. We like having lots of red color in our tree.   I put the tomtens out on the buffet, hang the wreath on the front door, and that is that.  A friend of our daughter who grew up in Stuttgart says our tree looks very German.  It is how my mother decorated  the tree, and I like the style.

What is your Christmas decorating style?

32 thoughts on “Christmas Style”

  1. Rise and Decorate the tree, Baboons,

    I have an artificial tree out of need. I am allergic to pine trees (and poinsettias), so having a real tree in the house is not realistic . The tree is covered in ornaments that we collected on our travels. My favorites are the tiny Pinocchio from Italy and the flower covered watering can from Savannah, GA. There are three ornaments that are my sentimental favorites: a felt snowman made by my step-daughter, a styrofoam glued and colored ball by my step-son, and a macaroni covered circle spray painted green and covered with glitter. These were made by our children. Those represent life’s really big journeys.

    Today is a Big Day for me. We have a credentialing site visit from the Linehan Board of Certification. If we pass it will be the professional equivalent of the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” in my world.
    Wish me luck.

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    4. I developed a sore throat the night we put up the tree, and I worried that perhaps I had developed an allergy to the tree. Now I have a full blown chest cold with cough and fever, so it is a virus, not allergies. A relief of some sort. Glad I can be at home and it is happening before the holidays.

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  2. We used to have a real tree, usually a big Scotch pine, lit with a jillion little lights in all colors. The ornament collection was vast, and each ornament had a great story. We had custom-made stockings on the fireplace. Scattered around the house were Santa figures, a big Nutcracker, a creche and other Christmas displays.

    This year all our Christmas stuff is locked up in a storage unit, for this is officially a transition year. I’m in a new senior complex whose traditions are all new, and I can’t afford to decorate. We are dedicated to celebrating the season without the help of accessories we’ve come to love. Perhaps we can create some new traditions..

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  4. Mine could be called “Light” decorating (and also “Lite”) – I now decorate mostly with strings of lights. On a normal year I’d put a string of lights in every room, but we’ve decided to do an Amtrak trip to visit close friends in Port Townsend, WA, so I’m not doing as much as usual.

    We have a tiny tabletop tree which doesn’t hold much, so I hang my glass (Shiny Brite) ornaments around the house wherever there are no lights – in the windows, from the metal Peace wall “sign”.

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  6. A friend annually displayed a creche scene that included a great many visitors, including a set of plastic figures of all the US presidents and anything else that struck her fancy. We’ve sort of emulated (copied) that, though our nativity includes more livestock, including a rhinoceros and some dinosaurs.

    Our tree decorations are an accumulation of things we’ve made over the course of almost 50 years, things our kids and grandkids have made, gifts from friends, ornaments from my childhood, and a piece of brown plush, all that’s left of a stuffed bear beloved (to pieces) by our first golden retriever, Teddy.

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    1. One of the great pleasures of decorating the tree, I think, is unwrapping and revisiting all of the memories that each ornament holds before finding the right spot on the tree for it.

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  7. What a beautiful tree, Renee. It looks lovely, just the kind of eclectic tree that I love.

    Sadly, I gave up on Christmas trees several years ago. I used to decorate the whole house with strings of light, wreaths, swags, straw goats, shiny glass balls and candles everywhere. The centerpiece, a large Scotch pine with tiny white lights and all kinds of ornaments, many of them hand made. Garlands of Danish flags, paper angels, julehjerter (Christmas hearts woven in different colored paper), and lots of one-of-a-kind ornaments collected over a lifetime. It was fun while it lasted, but I just don’t have the energy to do it all anymore.

    So, these days, my concession to Christmas in terms of decorating is a couple of nice arrangements of pine boughs, red dogwood branches and dried hydrangeas. Tea lights in glass snowballs placed strategically to give little flickers of light in dark corners, a poinsettia or two, and I call it a day. I’m forcing three amaryllis bulbs, too, but they’re taking their dear, sweet time, and there’s no way they’re going to bloom this year. This despite the fact that I started them a month ago. Sigh.

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  8. Hi- We do a real tree. Frasier fir. Just picked one up this past weekend. Selection was limited as we’re kinda late but it’s just what worked. And it’s a nice tree. I put lights on it when I got home last night. The rest of the decorations will be soft, ‘home made’ looking / crafty things.
    I grew up with regular ornaments. Sometimes tinsel (man what a mess). I think some year I’d like to do a tree just literally COVERED in light and nothing else.

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    1. We have a Frasier Fir, too. Fresh tree options are limited here, so we ordered it from Williams Sonoma. We consider it a present to ourselves. It arrives via UPS in a very long box. It is always very fresh. This year was a record in getting the tree up, as it was 30 minutes from the time we took it out of the box, trimmed the bottom of the trunk, and had it up in the living room in its stand.

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  12. costco has a great deal on fraser furs. so great they run out early. got it day 1 this year
    lights are all that’s on it this year with london on the agenda
    deb says lites are really appealing to her by themselves
    i used to have lots of ornaments most have gotten broken by dogs and kids and moves loved the wizard of oz puppets and my tree topper is tinker bell
    driving from chicago home with a midnight arrival
    great trip good to be home
    i’ll see if i can put together a recap
    i used to decorate the heck out of everything
    i’m feeling old and tired with operations that wont let me lift anything and all my kids out and about

    grand kid may start to get the hang of it this year

    i live life differently at christmas with those love thy neighbor thoughts coming around and people smiling at me with the longer beard turned white in its current state. there was a woman on the train in london who was blitzed and happy as a clan talking in that sing songy voice and when i got on the train she stopped and looked at me like i was santa. i told her this was my time of year and she showed me the stuffed elf she bought to celebrate the seasonfar away smile lost in la la land. my daughter when we got of the train a few stops later said “which drug is it that makes you pupils get big and black? isn’t it heroine?
    i was glad i didn’t know the answer to that one .
    most of my santa beard admiration is more in passing, this woman made it soulful and wishful.

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  13. I’m not sure you can call my decorating “style”. I just have a nice assortment of things I like. My most beloved piece is a 2 foot tall Santa that was hand-sewn for me by one of my very good friends. I adore this. YA chose the tree again this year. I really like white pine but I do know that they don’t show off the lights and the ornaments to their best. YA likes short needles so we have a frasier for this year as well. I don’t have any of my Ukrainian eggs out because of the kitty. She hasn’t climbed up the tree this year (yet) so maybe next year I might be able to put the eggs out again. It’s been many years.

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