Christmas

A Bloggy Thank You

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I love this time of year. Partially because I love giving (and getting) presents. And one of the few places I trust to give me books I’ll like is the book blogger holiday swap, which is why I do this every year.

I got my package in the mail yesterday (squee!) and since it wasn’t wrapped, I thought I’d throw out a thank you before Christmas to Amy at The House of the Seven Tails for the lovely present she sent.


I can’t wait to read it! (And the penguin bookmark is very cute!)

Thank you!!!

Advent Tour: O Tannenbaum

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I haven’t thought to talk about our Christmas tree before, because usually we wait to put it up after A’s birthday. Which means, if I generally choose the first Sunday in December (and I do), then I don’t think about my tree as a viable advent calendar topic.

But this year, because my husband is off to Hong Kong, we put the tree up early. And I realized, that there’s a story I could tell.

This is our tree:

I don’t know if it shows, but my tree is not what you’d call elegant. Or put together. It’s a hand-me over, 9 feet tall, and leans slightly to the left; in fact, we’ve warned the kids that if they do too much bouncing around, the tree will fall over (we know this from experience). It’s not color coordinated, and I’m sure Martha Stewart would not approve. However, what my tree has going for it is that each ornament (or at least most) have a story behind them. I can tell you where we got each and every ornament and why it’s hanging on the tree. Okay, sure, I’m getting older, and some of the stories are a bit fuzzy. But it’s one of the things I like most about our tree: it’s got stories.

Let me tell you a few.

This one was the first one Hubby and I purchased, on our honeymoon to San Francisco. We saw it sitting in the gift shop of the San Francisco Botanical Gardens, and knew we had to get it.

This one is another early one: I cross-stitched it because of Hubby’s love of cows. I think there should be more cows at Christmas, personally.

While we’re talking old ornaments, this is one of the oldest on the tree. It’s a shrinky dink, made in 1973, when I was one. I’m constantly amazed that it’s still in one piece (though the words “Merry Christmas 1973” on it are are fading). I do still love seeing it on the tree, though.

Another homemade one… if I had a chance and the money to collect anything, I would probably collect Santas/Father Christmases. I’m quite enamored with the whole mythology of Santa, and how he’s represented in different cultures. (There are a lot of Santas on our tree, in various forms, as a result.)

One of the other things we’ve done is get each one of the girls their own ornament for each year. We’re doing it so they have something to take with them when they move out, but, like everything else on the tree, they have their own stories, too.

This one of M’s we bought when we stopped over in Salt Lake City the Christmas of 2000. I was so excited by the stopover that I took her to see Ballet West’s Nutcracker, which happens to be my favorite. They had a gift shop, and so we had to pick out an ornament. She got the Sugar Plum Fairy. (We also have a Nutcracker ornament from the same place, but he was bought much earlier, and is a bit worse for the wear these days.)

This one of C’s was one that I painted (not well, but there it is) the Christmas she adored The Snowman. She was 20 months old, and it was her favorite movie and favorite book. We wanted to remember that.

This one of A’s was a pair of baby shoes that her grandma sent her the year she was born. (She’s our December baby, if you haven’t figured that out yet.) They were much, much too nice to wear, so we tied the laces together and threw them on the tree. Perfect.

K, being the youngest, only has a few ornaments (she wanted to know why she didn’t have very many). This one we picked up at a craft fair in Coeur d’Alene a couple years back. It’s sculpted out of candle wax. I’m not sure she picked this design out; it may have been picked out for her. Still, the detail is amazing.

And being parents of school-aged children, there’s a handful of odd little school ornaments. Things they make in class, and then bring home to throw on the tree. The girls love seeing them as they come out of the box, and so I don’t have the heart to throw them away.

And finally, our tree wouldn’t be our tree without our fireman. He was sent to us by Hubby’s older sister, many years ago. I have no idea why she sent him, but we immediately fell in love: what tree shouldn’t have a guardian fireman? We stick him near the top so he can keep an eye on all the other ornaments, and protect the tree from any danger.

Merry Christmas!

Be sure to check out the other stops on today’s tour:

Veronica @ The First Draft

Christmas Book Week, Day 6

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From the Dr. Seuss Christmas Classic:

So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow…

But the sound wasn’t sad!
Why this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!

HE stared down at Who-ville!
The Grinch popped his eys!
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shocking surprise!

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold int eh snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?
“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch Thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.
“Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more!”

And what happened then…?
Well… in Who-ville they say
That the Grinch’s small heart
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute his heart didn’t feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light
And he brought back the toys! And the food for the feast!
And he…

… HE HIMSELF …!
The Grinch carved the roast beast!

Happy Christmas from my house to yours!

Christmas Book Week, Day 4

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From Baboushka, retold by Arthur Schollet, and illustrated by Helen Cann. A not-so-subtle reminder to get out from under the business and just *enjoy* the season.

Now everyone was itching for news. No one could work. No one could stay indoors. No one that is, but Baboushka. Baboushka had work to do — she always had. She swept, polished, scoured, and shined. Her house was the best kept, best polished, best washed, and best pained. Her garden was beautiful, her cooking superb.

“All this fuss for a star!” she muttered. “I don’t even have time to look. I’m so behind. I must work all night!”

So she missed the star at its most dazzling, high overhead. She missed the line of twinkling lights coming toward the village at dawn. She missed the sound of pipes and drums, the tinkling of bells getting louder. She missed the voices and whispers and then the sudden quiet of the villagers, and the footsteps coming up the path to her door.

Christmas Book Week, Day 3

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gFrom The Little House on the Prairie, which has been made into a lovely picture book called Santa Comes to Little House.

Laura and Mary never would have looked in their stockings again. The cups and the cakes and the candy were almost too much. They were too happy to speak. But Ma asked if they were sure the stockings were empty.

Then they put their hands down inside them, to make sure.

And in the very toe of each stocking was a shining bright, new penny!

They had never even thought of such a thing as having a penny. Think of having a whole penny for your very own. Think of having a cup and a cake and a stick of candy and a penny.

There had never been such a Christmas.

Christmas Book Week, Day 2

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Happy Midwinter everyone! Find some sunshine, if you can, and pull out your (hopefully well-worn) copy of The Dark is Rising, and enjoy. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s a teaser to get you (hopefully) interested.

The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawson’s farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.

Christmas Book Week, Day 1

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I thought, this week before Christmas, amid all the reviews and other things (read: Cybils reading, girls home from school) I’ve got going on, I’d share some of my favorite quotes from Christmas books and stories.

To start off, because we’re going to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol tonight, a couple from the Charles Dickens classic:

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.

He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.