(***I know this is a mystery blog. I will get back to the mystery side of it soon.***)
One of the activities I enjoy each Christmas season is decorating our home. While I miss our son’s and daughter’s help positioning each ornament on the tree, in a way, I feel like they are still with me decorating the tree. My husband and I have replaced our full-branched artificial Christmas tree with a thin but tall artificial tree that takes many fewer ornaments.
When we switched to a skinny (almost anorexic!) tree, I decided to limit the ornaments to just those to which we have sentimental attachments. So, gone are our shiny store-bought baubles. Instead, we have ornaments lovingly made by our son and daughter. Some of these decorations go back to a time when their little hands were barely able to manipulate the safety scissors or hold the glue sticks.
As I unwrap each of these priceless ornaments (including a toilet paper tube little drummer boy!) I am taken right back to those days. It’s funny, I remember wondering why those elementary school teachers thought we’d want toilet paper roll tubes hanging on our Christmas trees for may future years. And yet, now every year as I pack them away I treat them like precious family heirlooms.
OK, enough of my sentimental journey! To get back to the point of this blog entry!
I mentioned a tip a few years ago for families with young children. Please bear with me as I repeat it:
When my children were young, my son’s very favorite toys of all time were his Transformers. My daughter loved her tiny Sesame Street characters and, itty, bitty My Little Ponies and dolls. As they both got a little older and stopped playing with these small toys, I had the idea to save some of their beloved toys by turning them into small Christmas ornaments using festive holiday ribbons to attach them to the tree.
So now, amongst our third grade pipe cleaner-with-red-and-white Pony bead candy canes, and our fifth grade sequined styrofoam pin-cushion ornaments, we have tiny Transformers and itty, bitty My Little Ponies. All of these things make our Christmas tree special to us.
How about you? Do you have any holiday decorating tips? If you do, please share them with us by posting a comment below. Thank you!
Petie says
I love to look back at the ornaments Billy made or we bought as he was growing up. Even the ones when Bill & I were first married mean so much to me, especially now. But anyone with cats in the house knows that we can’t really have a tree per se. So I put them in book cases with doors that are ‘cat proof’. This will be a difficult Christmas for my son & I but we will get through it as we’re getting through Thanksgiving with my twin sister, good friends, and the good Lord every step of the way. Much love to all on this site – my blessed ‘extended family’ means a lot. Happy Turkey Day !
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Petie, years ago, I had a cat, so I remember those days of having to cat-proof items around the house.
I’m glad to hear you have such a strong, supportive group of friends and loved ones to help you and your son during the holiday season. You are in my thoughts.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
I just got this great ornament idea from Melissa Anne:
“We have a clear ornament that hangs on a little display hook with a ribbon. I take little slips of paper and write milestones or memories (some good some bad like when we went to the beach or our dog died) from my son’s year and add them to the ball. We also read the ones already in there. It’s a great way to keep memories alive and decorate at the same time!”
I wish had thought of something like this when our children were young!
Rob says
Danna and company: I do remember fun Christmas eve’s (I didn’t want to be a complete downer) when Mom was with us and Dad and I look at the tree on Christmas Eve and remember Mom and former Holidays with her. We also got our rescue puppy last Christmas and he was my present! And what a joy he is! A Charcoal/pewter long-haired Daschound named Max that is now 24 months December. He makes our days lighter.
Mom used to have us all open one gift on Christmas eve and she would get near the tree and pick a present for us all to open. She even shook them so we had to wrap her gifts with a lot of padding so she couldn’t hear anything! Like I said-she was a nut! But a fun one!
Petie-I can relate to the “hide the toys and ornaments” routine around our cat. She would crawl up through the tree and knock everything off the tree and go chase them. We couldn’t have anything breakable or edible for that matter. I understand the “cat proof” mentality that we have to have with felines.
Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Holidays to all the Cozy Readers! Drive safe and arrive alive to you all.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Rob, Happy Thanksgiving to you! I wasn’t going to talk about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but since I decorated our house so early, I sort of got carried away. Max sounds like an absolute darling!
Rob says
Danna: It is just me, Dad and the puppy now so we don’t do much. My Mom passed away 10 years ago and she was the Christmas nut! I have some nice ornaments hand stitched Cross stitch that I put on our 5 foot synthetic tree with white lights and the ornaments that Karen made. I also decorate the mantle and put stockings up. Dad doesn’t like a lot of decorations so I don’t do much. I do go to church-weather permitting and we go out on Christmas Eve but that’s about it. With Mom gone, Dad doesn’t much do anything.
Rob
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Rob, it sounds like you do plenty! I love home-made ornaments! They mean so much to both the person who made them and those who received them.
Susan Sundwall says
Danna – I still have homemade ornaments that my grandmother made back in the 60’s. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Susan, those are the ornaments that are so precious. Don’t you just love getting out your decorations and finding them >>> lovingly tucked away in tissue paper. They’re the best!
carolyn says
when I was younger our whole family would go to my grandparents for sunday dinner every week. in the afternoon grannie, my aunts, my mother & I would do whatever crafts were popular at the time. I still have some of the stockings & my daughter has the tablecloth we sequined/beaded. I also have a set of 3 styrofoam oraments that I made with my grannie one time when it was just the two of us. also, on the subject of cats – several years ago I had a beautiful 7 1/2 ft. prelit christmas tree & a 9 month old cat. I was asleep one day (working nights at the time) and had the tree partially set up. when I woke up I found the cat hanging upside down in the tree chewing the light wires. no more tree.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Carolyn, yikes! Your kitten was certainly chewing on the wrong things! I have a friend who has cats who actually had her husband put a hook in the ceiling of their living room so they could attach the tree o the hook so their cats couldn’t push the tree down. I’m not sure how they handled the problem with the lights.
I’m guessing you cherish those ornaments. It must be a wonderful feeling when you bring them out each year…
Tullita says
Some of those early (and broke) Christmas memories. Anyone remember the wood ornaments you could buy at the craft store and paint. The first year in our house, I was expecting our daughter (now 38) and we didn’t have a lot of spare cash for decorations. I bought a kit, lovingly painted the wood ornaments and still have some that I put on the tree. I have always had cats….good news, they don’t break but I’ve found a few batted around the living room. I also have and hang in a place of honor the Santa made from a red napkin and some felt by that same daughter in the first grade.
Another decorating idea that some may want to follow, I have Santa/Christmas pictures of not only the daughter and grans but from my childhood. I’ve found nice Christmas frames and replace the usual family photos for the holidays.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and happy reading, get decorated then cozy up 🙂
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Tullita, what a wonderful idea! I’m going to try to find some special Christmas pictures that we have hidden away in photo albums.
Ellen Byron says
Sorry, I’m behind on my post reading due to Thanksgiving. I’ve been collecting ornaments since I was a tween. When I was in middle school, my mother wanted to give up a Christmas tree because it was too much work. So I took it over. I have ornaments dating back to when she and my dad married. One was part of the carousel that hung over my baby crib! When my husband and I married, I insisted on incorporating his family’s ornaments into the tree. The first ornament we put on the tree dates is his family’s paper angel from 1926. One thing I do that I love is every year, I take one of my daughter’s wallet-sized school pictures and put it in a small ornament frame. When we decorate the tree, it’s like I’m watching her grow up before my eyes. Sniff, sniff…