Christmas Decorations: Part 1, Trees

I feel like a big part of Christmas is the decorations of the season and I always get pleasure out of having my house decorated. I've accumulated a bunch of Christmas stuff over the years.  At first everything fit into one bankers box but now I'm up to three not counting the extra boxes for the big stuff: my tree stand, wreath, Scandinavian star and metal tree ornament holder. Earlier this year I had done a quick going through.  And had the resolution this season to either use all the decorations or else consider letting go of stuff. 

I took a bunch of pictures before I left for the road trip down to VA for Christmas. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had splurged on three trees. This is the Christmas of the Christmas trees.  It took me a whole day running around greater Boston trying to find a way to stand up the two little trees. They were only $10 each and I hated buying more tree stands that cost almost as much, and didn't look that great. Luckily, I've been pinning to Pinterest Christmas stuff the last few years so had some good inspiration. After stops at four different stores in four different towns, I finally found these great galvanized buckets that I could use in other ways throughout the year. No luck finding pea gravel, apparently it's out of season right now, but I did find some marble chips and that seemed to work keeping the trees upright. They sit in my dining room and aren't they marvelous? This may become a new tradition for me. 

Each one is decorated with my ornaments, from what I call my scandanavian collection. It's mostly straw ornaments and red stars. 

Plus a few new ornaments from my travels this year, and past. A peace dove I picked up at the ICC in The Hague. The building was closed to visitors but the museum and gifts shop were open. The curly que is from one my favorite little boutiques in Brattleboro, VT.

On the other tree, I topped it with an ornament from one of the small villages in Transylvania, and the dove below is from Iceland. 

And the little angel in a walnut shell, I also picked up in Romania this spring. 

I forget where my moose came from, but I'm going to guess VT.  At least that's what I think of when I see it.  

And the cats favorites, a few felted acorns.  The first night the trees were up, I heard the cats playing with something in the early dawn hours, and realize it must have been a few of these acorns. I've been on the hunt to find where they hid them.  The acorns are from the Decorative Arts museum in Ohio. 

A few days later, after living with the decorated trees, I wanted to put something under them, like wrapped gifts and then it dawned on me.  My few remaining stuffed animals that I have tucked away. This would be a perfect little home for them and a way to enjoy them at the holidays. 

Wallis, really loves the little bear on the right, sitting in the front. I will often find him in the morning, as a gift, presented to me on my bed, or at the floor by my bed. Every day, I end up putting a few bears back in their place, but no damage done. 

I don't have a picture of these trees at night, all lit up and am sure my camera won't do them justice at night. It's so nice walking by and seeing them all twinkling. I also don't have a great picture of my main tree in my living room I realize. 

I have it decorated with my second collection of Christmas ornaments. I usually will alternate each year between the two collections.  But not this year, I got everything out and on the trees, or elsewhere. This tree is decorated from the ornaments of the years.  Starting with wooden ornaments from my childhood and include a few given to me as a child, like the little cross stitch one from Mrs Angus, one of my piano teachers, who was on the Air Force base, or the gold Norman Rockwell scenes from grandparents.  And include ornaments I picked up in the different places I've lived over the years. 

And that's not all.  I forgot I actually have a fake tree. It's a little guy that I decorated with red berries and have quietly tucked away in the phone cubby off the dining room. 

What's that count so far?  Four, right.  But I also ended up making a tree. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to make sure I was enjoying all the decorations.  Why have them, and then keep them boxed up during the holidays. The two little trees couldn't quite take all the scandanavian ornaments, so the extras I made a winter scene, in the same room, on the opposite wall from the table top trees. 

The extra straw stars I've picked up at a Swedish festival, ten thousand villages back when I volunteered there and from travel, I have up in the sky.  And the extra straw pine cones I arranged as a tree. And all I used was a little bit of masking tape. You can see a little bit of the big tree in the background. 

The final Christmas tree, that brings the count up to six, I had nothing to do with but still get to enjoy it. My neighbors downstairs, put big white Christmas lights on the pine tree out front which compliments nicely our white candle lights in the front windows. 

Christmas Trees

Wow, I hadn't realized I was two months behind posting. One of my faithful readers reached out via email to see what I've been up to. I knew I wasn't blogging much these days, but thought I was doing at least a post once a month. Keeping with the pattern I should fill you in with October and November updates, but instead, I have to share my story from last night.

Yesterday, after lunch I hit my errand run list.  I have a hard time running to just one store, especially if it's not just down the street. I like to bundle for efficiency but yesterday, there was a lot.  I'd like to say I was running to stores to pick up Christmas gifts, but looking at my haul, there was only one Christmas gift in the mix.  On a side note, I did discover at the mall, that Primark is about to open. I feel like it's been a British Invasion this year from target and rite aid starting to carry some British line lotions to now Primark popping up all over Boston. Not sure if they carry stuff I'd like but after following a few British youtubers and hearing about their Primark hauls, I'm curious. 

The impetuous of the outing yesterday, was a last minute change in my weekend plans.  I'm heading over to a friends house today, whose husband has a wood shop, and who is my go to for cutting wood.  I started looking at table saws this year, but besides being an investment, I just respect the safety and don't like the idea of working with a saw without someone around to call 911, just in case something goes terribly wrong. But I do have a bunch of wood projects I would like to tackle. For now, the easy one, adding a shelf to my closet shoe shelf and raising an existing shelf a few inches so even my heels can fit.  Between summer and winter and dress and casual, I found it difficult to pare down my shoes to fit my earlier shoe shelf I made a few years back.

Anyways, by the time I hit 6 pm, and after visiting a handful of stores and crossing stuff off my list, I'm on the fence whether I should head over to Lowes or just call it a day and save the project for after the holidays. But I decide to persevere and a ten minute drive turns into at least 30 minutes crawling on the highway to get three exits over. The parking lot is pretty empty, compared to the rush hour traffic I just battled. And I see Christmas trees out front. I'm planning on picking up a tree this morning over by their house since there are more small garden centers out their way. But maybe, I think, I should, just get one now (last night) at lowes. The prices aren't much cheaper and in the end I couldn't do it.  I want to buy local when possible.  So I get my wood, figure out a configuration so it fits in my back seat (the challenges of a car whose seats don't go down) and I'm off. Except my gps is putting me back on the highway that is packed. I drive in the general direction of home on surface streets, no idea where I am, and before you know it I recognize a small lake.  It's where I did orienteering at the end of summer. As I'm driving home, I pass by a local nursery I've visited before. Side note, this is where I got a few plants when I was trying to green up my place.  One fern died the second day I was home, a few other plants lasted a week or so and my ficus tree held on, but after a month and loosing half its leaves, I found a new home for it at my neighbors' office.  The only remnant from that trip, is my favorite window planter in the kitchen and my mother-in-law tongue plants.  I bought three and now have 10 since they keeping propagating and are super low maintenance.  So not a complete loss. 

I had forgotten they have a whole big Christmas business. It's humming with people and I pull in to the parking lot to check things out. It's local, it turns out to be very affordable, and it's only one town over. I'm excited because I think I may have found my new go-to for Christmas tree place.

In past years I've gotten a few trees from VT, and with friends in the burbs, but my only regular place has been the local Boys and Girls club where every time, I feel like I bring home a half dead tree and half the needles fall out the second day. I like supporting them, but want a better tree. 

The trees are real, in that they haven't been perfectly manicured and have character. And I start in the small lot and move my way up in size trying to figure out what size tree would work best. Here, I have to stop, and share that for a few years now I've been dreaming of having more than one Christmas tree. It's extravagent so hasn't materalized. I have slowly acquired enough Christmas ornaments for three different trees.  One batch is my childhood wooden ornaments, the second batch is my Scandinavian blond straw ornaments. These two styles I usually alternate.  And I inherited all our childhood Christmas cookie cutters which I thought would make neat ornaments with a bit of red ribbon. Each year I evaluate where the tree should go. In the living room in front of the picture window, or over on the other wall, at the end of the living room?  Or maybe in my back sunroom or even in my dining room. These days some of the locations don't work with the new furniture arrangements though. But Pinterest certainly gives a lot of inspiration.

Back to last night.  I found my tree and loved that it was at least $10 or $20 cheaper than what I usually pay. And I had just walked through the shorter trees and explored options. So I couldn't resist and in the end, I loaded my car up with three Christmas trees!  The total was about $5 more than what I usually pay and my car was exploding with pine (I don't like to put it on top in case it scratches the car). It seems like a lot, but one is my regular tree and then I got two table top like trees. I say "like" because I got them home, and it looks like they might be a tad too big for the space I planned. I feel like I have a pass this year since I just learned last week that I'm the only one left in my family bringing home a Christmas tree!  What has happened to my world?  I can't imagine a Christmas without the ritual of bringing home a tree, decorating it and enjoying the smell of pine throughout the house. That's half the fun of Christmas. I do get that the tree can be a mess and after getting home late last night I just wanted to grab a bite and crawl into bed but had to lug the trees upstairs, dig out the tree stand and get them set up so they could have their water. And if I remember right, nick and I did the tree decorating for a bunch of the years growing up.  It's become my thing and I'm just excited to have a house full of trees... And so do Wallis and Webster. 

I'm still not done yet though. The smallest tree stands cost more than the trees themselves and pretty cheaply made, so I passed.  I dug out my tall jam making pot and filled it with water and after a little wrangling have both the small trees intertwined sharing the pot for now.  Quick research this morning and I think I'm on the hunt for a nice looking base (my preference is a copper or tin bucket) container and buying pea gravel. But first, I'm off to my local toy store to pick up presents for the birthday party today (they were closed by the time I made it home last night).  And the dry cleaners to drop off my old childhood living room curtains that I picked up from moms at thanksgiving and lugged home.  They go perfectly in my bedroom. Need to figure out how to hang them with the way grandmas sewed the top, but that's another project for another day. 

I can't wait to decorate the trees tomorrow. Oh, just remembered I may need to pick up some more Christmas lights too. Hopefully I'll share some pictures in the future, so stay tuned