Friday, December 11, 2020

Memories: The Tree

 I'm sure I post about our Christmas tree every year. I think this is the first time we have not added any ornaments to it, since there were no Christmas shop visits this year. But it's groaning already, hung heavy with ornaments collected over many years. 

We start with the pre-lighted tree, only our second artificial tree in the last 30 years. This one is a lot easier to put up than the first one. 

We add the garlands and the crocheted snowflakes, which we have had for at least 45 years. 

Then we start unpacking the ornaments. I unwrap all of the fragile ones that have been wrapped in tissue paper and stored in shoe boxes. 

We have a lot of birds.

And fruits and vegetables. And bacon.  All of these glass ornaments are the most recent additions. After the kids left home, we started going on Christmas field trips with teacher friends, and I could not resist collecting from the gift shops. 
The pigs and horses were collected by our kids when they were in elementary school, so maybe 35 to 40 years ago. Jake collected pigs and Jill collected horses. These are just some of the ornaments. The collections, with stuffed animals and all kinds of other collectables,  are still in our attic.
There are felt ornaments I made long ago when our kids were babies. There are Santa ornaments, of course.

There are peacocks for granddaughter Irene. 
Birds everywhere. 



There are ornaments that reflect our hobbies. You will find garden tools and bees and bugs too.
These are survivors of long ago when our kids were in pre-school. 


Lucia and a pony. 

And there is Krampus. But nobody here is bad enough to worry about him bringing us sticks. 


That's just a taste of what's here. We have fun unpacking all of the memories and loading them on the tree. 
And then The Winnie the Pooh characters go under the tree. Tom's mother made them long ago for her grandchildren. I received the first one, Piglet, when I was pregnant with Jill the Christmas of 1972. 
Oh, so many years, and so many memories. 

16 comments:

  1. You must have a huge tree or a number of trees for all these ornaments.

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  2. how fun, so many memories. Our tree is little and simple but works for our small retirement home.

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  3. Such beautiful ornaments and memories. I love your pretty birds, the goldfinch caught my eye. But they are all really delightful. Thanks for sharing your tree with me! :-)

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  4. That is a beautiful tree with some beautiful memories. It must be so satisfying to sit in its light and reflect on all your Christmases together.

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  5. Oh the memories in those ornaments. Loved the birds and Krampus per usual gave me a bit of a start. Glad I didn't know about him as a child. That is a tree to delight and to be proud of.

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  6. Such lovely ornaments and memories too. Enjoy!

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  7. I so agree that the ornaments make it such fun to decorate the tree with memories. I have an entire tree full of birds. 🐦🐧

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  8. Your tree is fabulous, those Winnie figures under the tree are a nice family tradition. We have lots of bird ornaments too, and most of our ornaments have a story. I also have a small tree with only bird ornies, in addition to our tall tree from a tree farm.

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  9. So lovely. The tree at home always had birds like those. I wonder where they went. The bacon made me smile.

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  10. Your tree is so beautiful and all the memories. It is amazing, especially ornaments from when Jill and Jake were in school. You have kept everything so nice.

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  11. This is a beautiful tree with many fine ornaments.

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  12. Thank you for sharing your wonderful trees. so many memories.

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  13. You and Tom really do have the most AMAZING ornaments, Linda. You must have the most gorgeous tree in Seattle.

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