Happy New Year

I made a conscious decision to NOT do a retrospective on this blog.  I don't have 5 gazillion posts to go through, and it's really just not something I would do.  I have tried and tried to make a list of goals in Jan. and follow up with them monthly and then at the end of the year, grade myself on how much I accomplished.

Let's face it, I am not good at this.  This is why I am not enrolled in an online school.  Self-starter?  Not so much.

So if you were looking for that kind of a post today, I will have to direct you to my friend sluggy's blog where she did a fabulous job of recapping and grading herself.

However!  I am here with some lovely and entertaining photos for you!  Yay!!

Without further ado, here come the pics.

I decided to take a picture of the new vintage 1960's aluminum tree with each of the colors of the color wheel shining on it.   In my head, you would be able to see how beautifully each of the colors looked and how distinctive.  We each selected a color we liked the best.  I thought I would like the blue, because blue and silver is such a perfect combo, but no!  I actually liked the amber/gold on the silver best. It was a really nice glow.  Take a look at these and see if you see any difference.  I am sorry to tell you that for me the color variations didn't show up at all.

And no, I did NOT just put the same damn picture up there 8 times.   Anyhoo, isn't it a beautiful silver aluminum tree?  And it was easy peasy to put together.  It came inside a new box that is housing the original 1960 box and all of the original little waxed paper sleeves for EACH of the 152 branches are there.  So, now we have to take it apart very carefully and put each of those 152 branches back into their own original little waxed paper sleeves.  (I can't tell you how much this appeals to my weird OCD self!)

Next year, this will be my main tree.  Yay!!!

And next to the tree, we have my buffet in the dining room that this time of year houses my gorgeous pewter angel and Christmas tree collection.  I love them.  Underneath them is this beautiful red and gold embroidered cut out table scarf thing my mama brought me from either Spain or Portugal.  I need to ask and find out for sure.  It is exactly the measurements for that buffet.  Just like it was made for it.

Sadly, I started taking photos of my Christmas stuff in the midst of moving things around and getting them ready to box up.  But next is the huge crystal bowl full of shiny iridescent ornaments that sits in the middle of the dining room table.  I am thinking that a bunch of those ornaments would be just perfect on the new vintage aluminum tree.  What do you think?

Next is a picture of my current main tree in the living room.  The reason I took this picture was to show the variation in the clear lights.  This is one of those damn pre-lit trees from 2 years ago.  The 2 year old original lights on it don't work except for a bunch on the very top of the tree.  So I strung a bunch more new lights on it and you can NOT believe the difference in color!  You know, old incandescent light bulbs have warm white and cool white and boy can you ever tell the difference if you happen to mix them?  Same thing here.  They all say "Clear White", but that is not the case.  Definitely got the warm vs. cool thing going on.  Grrrr.  Still hating the way quality has nose-dived on Christmas lights.

Next up is one of my largest nativities.  I love this one because of the bright vivid colors, the touches of metallic paint where it should be shiny, and especially how the angel just hovers above the stable.  She is beautiful.

And what Christmas decor would be complete without a Leg Lamp??  "It's a Major Award!  It must be I-talian, it says FRA-GEEE-LAY!"

This is one of my prized nativities.  I bought this when we lived in Mexico City.  It is a corn husk doll nativity.  The most amazing detail on each of them.  You can tell at a glance who each doll is.  I bought a herd of extra angels to stand around the holy family.

Here's a close-up of the 3 kings.  Notice how in Mexico they always have one dark-skinned king, and each of the kings has different garb and carries different gifts.  Awesome!

Next, I took some pictures of some of my ornaments.  Not necessarily my favorites, but some fun ones.

First up is one of the commemorative ones from the Texas State Capitol.

In this one you can see one of my many Christopher Radko walruses.  On the left is one of the little toothpick God's Eyes that the kids and I made in 1991.  When we moved to Guadalajara in August of 1991, our shipment of belongings didn't arrive and we had no ornaments.  So we sat down and made little God's Eyes out of toothpicks and embroidery floss and larger ones of 4 - 6 inch skewers and yarn. It was a really pretty tree.  And every year since we put the God's Eyes on to remember the year we had no ornaments.

Oh, and on the right of the walrus is a pewter ornament of The Alamo.  I have a lot of pewter ornaments.

In 2002 we moved to Minneapolis, and I went in a Hallmark store and they were doing different Santas from many countries.  So I found the 2 Santas that represent my heritage.  First is the Irish one.  He has the most gorgeous Celtic knot design on his coat.  Just beautiful.

And then the German one is more rough-hewn, made to look handmade.  This reminds me of the German relatives who make absolutely everything by hand.  He is a very nice Santa.

Another painted glass walrus, not Christopher Radko, but very nice and plump.

In this shot you can see that I found the pickle ornament and down below the pickle who do you find?  My favorite cartoon character!  Foghorn Leghorn!!  He has a teeny little Henry Chickenhawk next to him.

Another pewter ornament.

This ornament is very special to me.  When I started being a doula I went to the San Antonio Birth Doulas Christmas party where we traditionally do an ornament exchange and this was the ornament I got.  It was made by a wonderful young doula named Erin who had gone to school at RISD.  She made it of silver and the 3 teeny Christmas balls on it are little gemstones.  It is very sweet and means a lot to me.

This last picture is one of my newest ornaments.  This came from my very best friend Beth (mom of the Georgia Peach).   There is an organization in town that works with mentally handicapped people and they have started making these crosses.  They are made of nails, 2 long ones going up and down and 2 shorter ones for the arms of the cross.  Then the whole thing is wrapped in beaded wire and hung on a pretty piece of ribbon.  I left the tag on mine that says it was made by "Lil Will".  Isn't that the most precious thing?

Thanks for sitting through this little pictorial of some of my Christmas stuff.  Thanks for coming here to my little blog and sharing in my life.  It means a lot to me.

My wish for the coming year for each of you is a little time to relax, enjoy yourselves and find the love and peace surrounding you each day.

Happy New Year!