A few photos

 I think I mentioned buying some "vintage" (late 60s) tree ornaments from a couple Etsy sellers. They're Jewelbrite (or Jewel Brite) brand. Apparently made in the US, all plastic. (I have another one of those "plastic capsule with figure inside" ornaments, but it's a goofy little Santa and it has the feeling of one of those Made-in-Japan things where the Christmas traditions didn't quite translate:

The Jewelbrite ornaments, while plastic, are a bit more artistic and, dare I say, reverent? The main one I wanted featured the Holy Family:

I also got two of the three kings. I was hoping (I didn't remember because I ordered these at different times) to get all three of the kings. But I did get Caspar

And TWO Balthazars, but no Melchior. (If I remember correctly, the traditional names were Caspar for the one from sort of a "European like" area (white skin) and Balthazar was from Africa (dark skin) and Melchior was from an unspecified Asian area. And yes, I know - this is all syncretion and there's not really any textual support for it, but it's kind of nice, I think.

So I have my two Balthazars. Which might be appropriate as I have read that sub-Saharan Africa is one area where Christianity is actually gaining adherents.

I dunno. I just think the ornaments are neat. They're a little before my time and my parents didn't have any of them, but they are very much the style of ornaments that were common when I was a kid. 

There were apparently other designs: different shapes to the "capsules," and there were more "secular Christmas" symbols like Santa and reindeer in some I've seen. But these were affordable and they are nice. 

I also bought a little flocked angel at the one antique shop I went to on Saturday:

Again, we didn't have one exactly like this when I was a kid, but this is very much the style of ornaments we had, so I like it.

*****

I also finally got some photos of Darwin, the departmental kitten (several people share custody of him and one of them take him home every night, and he comes in to campus most days and hangs out in one of my colleague's offices, and people kind of use him as a therapy cat. He is tiny - he was an abandoned kitten and is probably somewhere between six and eight weeks old now. He is VERY sweet and likes to be held. A couple times when I've been holding him up against my chest he's gone to sleep, or once, I was holding him vertically (one hand under his backside, one on his back, his head looking up and me) and he went into a "loaf pose" (tucking his feet in) against my chest which was almost impossibly cute.

He has that sort of funny fuzzy kitten coat, with some longer hairs that stick out, you can see it here on his back