Christmas at my house

Welcome!

Even though I am notoriously slow about getting into the Christmas spirit (Humbug could be my middle name), once I get rolling I am very keen to set out all of the red and green lovelies that are my Christmas tradition. You won't see me out with the neighbors when they're decorating their homes the day after Thanksgiving. No, that's almost never me, partly due, I’m sure, to my other middle name… procrastination. However, along about the middle of December I get the urge to pull down the Christmas boxes, and dress up almost every corner of the house with my Christmas treasures.

This year I found my dream tree - a tabletop 6-footer with hinged branches and pre-lit with colored lights on sale for $25. That made it official! I was in the Christmas spirit!!

Mine is not a sophisticated pastel Christmas, so beautiful in other people's homes. Mine is the boldest red and the most evergreen green that I'm sure comes way too close to tacky, but I love it.

My most prized Christmas decorations are the the little wooden ones I found in 1981. They were derogatorily dubbed "pigs in space" by my #2 son, Wayne, when he arrived home as a college freshman. Not his idea of Christmas, I guess, but I think he's warmed up to them over the last 30 years. Some of them are a bit beat up and dog-chewed and missing spaceship parts, but Christmas isn't Christmas without my pigs in space.

They get hung carefully and strategically so they'll get the most notice, but I'm sad to say that hardly anyone ever notices them. The expectation of my Christmas-spirit-filled heart is always that guests will stand at the tree for minutes on end to cherish each ornament - as I do.

If they did, they'd clearly see all my Christmas memories.

All the golden, sparkling ones.

Ornaments come alive at Christmas, don't they?

I'm sure they frolic and dance while we sleep.

And then get still and wooden again when we awake.

Silver tinsel hung on the Christmas trees of my childhood. To this day I have never put garland on my trees. It just doesn't fit the tradition, but the day I found this new-fangled red tinsel - some uncounted number of years ago - I almost did a dance in the store. Red tinsel!! How Christmas-y!

Over the years I noticed the Santa Claus population growing to larger and larger numbers.

So I went with the trend.

Santas are quite lovable, you know, in all their various shapes and sizes and derivations.

There are lots of them on the tree.

Along with angels, of course.

Santa on a pine cone. Santa on a mushroom. A Santa mouse on a clear glass ball.

Oh, yes, the glass balls. Well, so many have broken, crashing to the floor. Many have faded and lost their bright colors tiny chips at a time.

My favorites are the painted ones with sparkles on them. They don't seem to make them much anymore.

My other favorites are ones with sunken designs that look like Faberge eggs.

Plastic has become the material of choice for the ornament manufacturers. Aren't they elves anymore?

Be they wood or plastic, they co-mingle sweetly on my tree.

Of course, some of the pigs in space aren't really pigs in space. Did you really expect accuracy from an 18-year-old boy? What were you thinking? Here's a wooden little fellow ready for the slopes.

My trees are mostly whimsical, but I love to find reminders of the Savior whose birth I celebrate.

Somehow my heart thinks the wood and gold and glass and plastic all fit together into such a beautiful picture.

Red and green are Christmas colors. Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

But blue is good for the bold nutcracker boy who guards the precious painted, sparkling glass ball.

Gold reminds me of the gifts they brought.

A mouse on skis and a sweet snowman from a Bible-study toddler years ago.

Snowmen and icicles adorn this Florida tree side-by side with the Wise Men..

What fun Christmas is!

The old ornaments don't seem to mind at all that the new ones have come.

Hey, wooden mouse! Wayne is coming on Sunday!

Did I mention that I like a lot of ornaments on a tree? Empty space bothers me. Fun space makes me joyful.

Can't you see Santa and the wanna-be Rudolph and the harp-strumming angel dancing as we dream?

And the angel who sounds the Savior's arrival.

Red berries adorn almost everything at Christmas time.

The first time I placed red Santas and stuffed Teddy Bear Santas on every shelf in every corner my DH was a bit overwhelmed. He kept intimating that I was overdoing it. Then the day came to pack all the red away, and DH was bereft and missing all the color.

Santa also sits on the grandmother clock. What else is a Santa to do with no fireplace in the house?

Kick-off time!

All the blue and white do-dads that were there and now aren't, packed away in the same boxes that held Christmas for so long.

Waiting on the foyer bench to cheer Christmas guests.

The bathroom door tinkles while you tinkle.

Is there anyone so jolly as St. Nick?

Ah ha! Prime decorating real estate!

Since this is a blog about roses, here’s one I snapped for you today with my cell phone on the way out to pay our property taxes. ‘Tis the season, you know.

'Madame Lombard' - bred by Francois Lacharme in France in 1878. Cooler weather brings big blooms.

I have more Christmas goodies to post on Christmas Eve. Until then…let the sugar plum fairies and red-nosed Rudolph dance around in your head, and don’t even be thinking about getting any sleep between now and the 25th. After all, we’re all children at heart, excitedly waiting, hoping to sneak a peak at Santa. So Ho! Ho! Ho! and have a  - - - -