Putting Away Christmas...

...is always a slightly melancholy endeavor.
Packed away in a little brown box with my grandmother's name and address, was a treasure that I forgot to display this past year!

Memories of carefully getting this tiny angel band out each season for my grandmother came back to my mind.  These miniatures were a gift from her sister to my father, when he was eight years old!  Each year, they would stand on a small mirror, placed atop the piano in the "sun room". 

Their hand-painted faces are so sweet.  Their mellow colors are so pleasing to my eyes!  Each musician holds a tiny instrument.  Chipped and faded, they become more fascinating with the passage of time.

I felt sure this band was of German origin.  Since I just returned from a visit to Munich, I'm sorry I didn't look more closely into the one of the many craft booths displaying painted wooden objects of all shapes, sizes and color!

There are numerous websites offering angels that are similar to these vintage cherubs.  However, I have been unable to locate and identify their exact origin...

Taken from Erzgebirgische Volkskunst - Popular Arts and Crafts from the Erzgebirge Mountains:

"The popular arts and crafts from the Erzgebirge mountains have been in the hearts of many people from many countries because of their great variety. It began with the miners' carving, went on to the making of bobbin-lace, and then coming onto the making of wooden toys. But most popular are the arts and crafts manufactured for Christmas which made the Erzgebirge region well-known as a "Christmas Country". Their basis was the miners' working and living environment which gave Christmas the sense of a "festival of light". The pyramids, "Schwibbogen", angel and miner candlesticks, made a special contribution to that. But the smokers and nutcrackers also gave Christmas in the Erzgebirge mountains a unique character. They all belong to the typical arts and crafts for Christmas.

Being the product of craftsmen and artists they are not only for Christmas decoration. They should not only be used for people's enjoyment, but rather it should also show the heritage of their creation and development. It was the social and economical influence that changed the form of the crafts, not tradition. There were important changes in content, design, and function of the arts and crafts. The responsibility of our cultural heritage demands to compare the results of the history to the present time and to combine the best parts for creating new items showing our feeling for tradition. Let us not only show the tradition of the arts and crafts but also do all the best for preserving and developing them, and integrating them in our life."

There are many more angel interpretations available, each with the individual characteristics of the original workshop :

Image by Ela2007 via Flickr

Trimming The Leaning Tower of Tree-sa

Images and ponderings from our tree decorating activities...

The tree is leaning.  We had to finally reconcile ourselves to that fact!  ;)  "They" said they are going to have Christmas on the 25th, whether our tree is straight or not.


I have turned it so that it leans into the corner!

Big sis was very patient in giving lessons on not putting ornaments too close to the end of the branch and separating ones that were alike. After a bit of time, the boy was done with the decorating and into chasing the cat around the tree, not at all helping with the leaning tree syndrome!

Tree lights have always been a source of slight distress on my part.  I have searched high and low for the perfect tree lights of my childhood.

During the nineties, while decorating the first tree I had in my own home, I was surrounded by the mini-yellow light craze.  Blah!  Every tree in America had these generic, white lights.  I wanted the multi-colored bulbs.  I really didn't care if, at that time, it were considered a bit "tacky".  It was Christmas -and Christmas is about memories and family!  To me, it was a matter of simply going out and buying these wonderful, nostalgic multi-colored, twinkling bulbs of wonder.  I had no idea of the changes in the tree light bulbing industry since the sixties.  Seems these glorious strings of lights of my youth were responsible for many a house fire... and after weeks of searching, appeared to be unavailable for purchase to the average consumer!

I finally resorted  to buying strings of outdoor lights, with large, chunky opaque bulbs and replacing each bulb with the hard-to-find, transparent(yet colored) twinkling bulbs, found in obscure places like on the bottom shelf at the back of CVS's clearance aisle.
  
Lately, I have noticed more and more folks are going with these merry, multi-colored lights and I quite like it.

Related link I found:  http://www.collectorsweekly.com/christmas/lights

Tree Lighting Festival

Let's start this post out with the fact that I had a total mind-block about the flash on my camara and other basics. (Sorry Sis.) I've never been real good when a whole lot is going on at once!
Hot chocolate, balloons, lines, lights, uhhhh.... my mind was blown. It doesn't take much. LOL

The balloon creations were awesome! These folks can make anything with balloons. Adorable elf hats, reindeer, all kinds of festive items. After standing in line for quite some time, my son chooses.... an octopus!! Oh well, it was a really cool octopus!

Four chicken tenders, two hot chocolates, and one gynormous octopus later - a smile!

Candy Canes!

This is a fun project! I used ideas from Martha Stewart to embellish this adorable infant top. Click here to purchase one!

Create all kinds of festive decorative items with good old-fashioned rick-rack! Who knew? Click here.