Through the house

As I said, I got the decorations up on Saturday.



And I probably should get a tripod for my camera if I want to take more "night time exposure" shots.

I put the little tree up on a low table; it is set in the curve of the piano (about the only place now in my small living room where it's fairly visible).

I also decided to put a few things ON the piano. My Nativity set is there, but so are these:



The silly singing snowman, and one of those little plaster lit-up trees. I love those. I got this one at a craft show I was at. My grandmother had one she put up every year but hers was the more traditional green-tree-with-lights (like this one. In fact, very much like that one.)

I have my little tree sitting on a doily so it won't scratch the piano.

A lot of the things I really enjoy about the holidays are not the expensive things. I know people talk about Christmas "costing a lot" and in some cases, questioning how much we should celebrate, given the "new frugality" or the "new austerity" or whatever.

I don't know. For me, the decorations cost little: I use the same little artificial tree I've had for ten years, and the ornaments I've collected over the years.

Some of them are ones I bought, some are ones I was given as gifts, some were ones I made.



I pull the same ones out every year because I like seeing them again - the blown-out egg that someone decoupaged with a picture of the Holy Family and then put clear glitter on top of the decoupaging to finish it, the little homespun angel ornaments I made one year, the silly Hello Kitty tiny ornaments that I bought because they were so cute.

I know people who change the "theme" and buy new ornaments every year, but that's just not for me. I like having the old ones back. It's true in my family-of-origin as well: my parents still put up some wooden ornaments they bought back when I was a tiny child (I was surprised, and delighted, as a teenager when Country Living did a feature on an "Ohio Farmhouse" and the people there had some of the same ornaments! I think my parents bought them at either a church bazaar or a benefit for Blossom or something like that). They have an ornament of a train that was bought when my brother was a baby.

I also put up the mantel garland and filled the mantel with decorations.



I know it's cluttered, but I feel like if there's any time of year you can get away with a Victorian level of clutter, it's Christmas.



Some of these items were gifts over the years (the Santa with the birdhouse, the snowglobe, the Dalarna horse (which was the "bridesmaid's gift" from my then-new sister-in-law, 12 years ago, now). Others are things I've found in shops over the years (the elf that is like one my grandmother had, the old reindeer toy)



And the snowmen. They will probably stay up for January and February once I take the other decorations down around New Year's.

Part of the reason I like these things is that they do hold memories. Perhaps the fact that I have a good memory is what tends to make me more sentimental. For example, I can look at the Dalarna horse and remember the Bridesmaids' Luncheon in my sister-in-law's parents' house, and how she bought that specifically for me (all the bridesmaids got small gifts but they were all different) because she knew I liked Scandinavian things (there was a Scandinavian-import shop next to the dressmakers' where we all went for fittings and I spend a lot of time looking in there). And the snowglobe was a door prize at a party I went to. And I can remember when I bought the Hello Kitty tree ornaments, and how I found the few vintage tiny glass globes I have in an antique shop.

And all of those recall happy times, good times. And in a way it makes me feel sort of rooted, the way having pictures of my relatives up on the wall makes me feel rooted. I think it's sometimes harder for someone who is single and living far from family to feel that rootedness, and it's something I seek out.

Most of my energies in decoration go to the living room, but I did put one thing up in the bedroom.

I had been wanting to get a small table-top tree - I was thinking of a typical green evergreen looking thing, a small artificial tree, perhaps with lights (then again, there is no plug on the wall nearest to where it would be. One of the drawbacks of an older house is that there are far fewer electrical outlets).

I couldn't find one in any of the shops I looked in. The closest thing I saw was almost $40, which seemed like way too much for such a small thing.

Then, when I was getting out the other decorations, I found the goofy white chenille-stem tree I bought a few years back. It was on an after-Christmas closeout and was something like $3, and I thought it was sort of cute (and I have a lot of pink in my house), so I bought it.

And I realized that I'd have nowhere else to put it up this Christmas (the mantel already being full), so I put it on top of the bookshelf.

It actually works pretty well there.



It's a bit hard to photograph but it's a white chenille-stem tree, a little bit in the spirit of the old goose-feather trees. The only decoration on it is a pink "garland" (which actually looks like the kind of trim you might put on a little girl's dress.)

I didn't try to put ornaments on it because I think they'd be too much.

Under the tree, from right to left, are a Folkmanis yak finger puppet that I bought as my "conference souvenir" from this year's Prairie Conference (I try, as much as possible, to find a small critter that can serve as a souvenir of every conference I've been to). Then there's Manny from Ice Age that one of my Ravelry friends sent me in a birthday box on my last birthday. And next to him is the Smilodon from the Field Museum gift shop that was my 2007 conference souvenir.

I don't know why the prehistoric animals (the yak is kinda-sorta prehistoric too; at least, they were one of the early domesticated animals), but they seem to work there.