Monday, December 8, 2008

Our Christmas Tree, part II.

IMGP2518

Our Christmas tree is an eclectic mix of ornaments collected on our travels, made by our children or given to us as gifts. Since it clearly has no decorative *theme,* I use a variety of colored lights: twinkling ones, novelties like bubble lights, flickering flames and Santa-shaped ones.

IMGP2499
The clothespin ornaments were made by my mom and my Aunt Paula and sold at craft shows around Atlanta in the 70's

IMGP2538
I love cardinals and have a lot of ornaments featuring them, including this beautiful one that my sister, Marian, needlepointed for me

IMGP2542
This little cardinal was given to me by my dear friend Norine who lived next door to us in our first house. He is the first thing we put on our tree every year

IMGP2543
A high school friend in Atlanta painted this egg for me when we were in 10th grade. It's one of my most treasured ornaments

IMGP2508
I celebrated my 40th birthday with four other couples in New York and bought this Swarovski tree topper to commemorate that fun weekend. The star is a replica of the one that topped the Rockefeller Center tree that year

IMGP2517
I also bought this beautiful tree skirt with some money my parents gave me for my 40th birthday

What a joy it is to relive memories every year when we decorate our tree. I always have a Christmas tree even on the years we leave town for Christmas. Our tree is one of the highlights of Christmas for me.


Note: In response to a question, our tree skirt came from Scully and Scully.

9 comments:

Linda@ Lime in the Coconut said...

what a perfectly beautiful tree!Looks much like the icon you have up next to it (the one that says Merry Christmas)

Ivy Lane said...

Beautiful! Merry Christmas!

KK said...

What a lovely tree.I too love the "eclectic" look with all the ornaments reminding me of someone or something. I especially love that gorgeous tree skirt!

JoAnn said...

I love Christmas-tree stories, and that tree topper is beyond gorgeous. I have been looking for one for 30 years LOL LOL

We have a wonderful local artist who almost always puts a cardinal in each painting. We have one---I will send you a photo of it. We bought it ages ago, a good thing --- because it would be really pricey now!

My mother started giving my son the Hallmark "Frosty Friends" ornaments when he was a toddler. I continued this tradition after she died, and decided to get him his own little tree when he had about 7 of them. Two years ago, I had to get him a bigger tree - they are large, heavy ornaments! I just found out that this is the longest-running Hallmark series....29 years!

Laura always had a lot of ice skating ornaments from all the years when she was a figure skater, so I got her a tree of her own too. Now she has those ornaments on her own tree.

We used to have 12-foot trees every year....once we "graduated" to artificial, when the kids were in college, I boxed up their handmade ornaments for them to have in their own homes someday. Just not enough room for all of them, and many are not in great shape due to being handled so much over the years by little hands!

And that's my Christmas tree story.

Amber M. said...

I love to see other people's trees and hear stories about their ornaments. It's almost like unwrapping friends each holiday season when you get your ornaments out, isn't it??

Merry Christmas!

The Mrs. said...

I love how eclectic your tree is! I have the same kind of thing but vary the theme time to time! That tree skirt is DIVINE! Where did you get it?

The 5 Bickies said...

I love your tree and the history of the ornaments. The memories come flooding back each year as the ornaments are unpacked.

Hopsy said...

I LOVE Scully and Scully. Don't they have the most amazing collection of Herend? Also, I love that needlepoint ornament. My mother has made me a needlepoint every every and they just look so pretty on the tree!

Anonymous said...

There may be something left on your doorstep soon from a Secret Santa. Shhhh....