Monday, December 19, 2016

#MicroBlog Monday - One Week...Ornaments, etc.


One week from yesterday.  Another Birthday, another Holiday...another year ending....one week.

Last night, after the kids went to bed, I made more chocolate fudge.  Mostly because I wanted to give some away for presents, partially because the last batch got too oxygenated and I don't like it that way (I like it when the fudge stays moist and soft, not hard).  I looked at my Grammie's writing of the recipe on the piece of paper that is worn and that I keep telling myself to laminate...and felt the bitter-sweetness of saying good-bye to it for another year, as I put it back in the recipe box.

I have not been too melancholy this season -- maybe because I am a bit more depressed about the situation in our country and that tends to dampen things in general, maybe it is because this season seems to have snuck up on me in a weird way...not like last year, where it totally surprised me and I did not have most of my holiday songs sung or movies watched...no, we have been very good this year in capturing the spirit of the season (maybe because we need the distraction from the "real world").  It just amazes me that, well, now...less than a week from now...it will be Christmas and Hanukkah and my Birthday...and then time will move on again....

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Meanwhile, I was gonna do this cutesy post about our ornaments on our tree...I took pictures and everything!  Our ornaments make our tree unique.  I love seeing those wonderfully spectacular trees, with all the lights and all the "put togetherness" and themes...but, our tree is not like that.  Our tree is a reflection of our family--lots of special ornaments that mean only something to us, an eclectic gathering of interests and past experiences.  Our lights are somewhat haphazardly put on the tree...because I am a perfectionist but short--and the ones who can actually put the lights on the tree, well, they are not perfectionists, and they get tired of hearing me ask them to move the lights this way and that.  And then there are the cats....the THREE cats...who have shown us through the past couple of years, that we need to have no glass ornaments or fragile ornaments on this tree--and the ornaments and lights better be up high, otherwise they are holiday cat toys.  

So, our tree has meaning and mess...and has bare branches on the bottom.  The branches, some of them are flared out to look like a real tree--other branches are so laden down with ornaments, who knows if they would actually not break if they were real (and some are probably still smooshed from when we put it away last year, cuz I could not be bothered to flare out one more damned branch--and my daughter was done helping already...)

Some of our ornaments: 


For a long while, Michael was really into Spider-Man...

And then Batman...

My parents gave me this ornament long ago, to celebrate my birthday.  They also got us ornaments to celebrate our wedding and the births of our children.  Each ornament is gold.

I started to get a family ornament each year, with our names and the year.  I like this tradition.  

This is from when Willow went the Nutcracker (one of her favorites!) and the wreath is from a dear Aunt of mine from long ago.

Michael learned piano for a bit...and my dad's wife Margo has made us wonderful ornaments, including this one for Michael (and a Klingon one for Brad, which we love!)

This year, Willow started piano lessons, and her teacher gave her an ornament to commemorate her first recital...and there is another Margo ornament for Willow!

I bought this Cthulhu a few years ago--one of my favorites!

I love this one too...

One of the oldest and dearest ornaments is Santa and his reindeer...next to one of the newest ornaments (one that Willow said brought tears to her insides)

Family ornament before Willow...

A mish-mash--we have a Michael ornament, an old Santa ornament, and a new family ornament.

50 years of Star Trek...yeah, an ornament was needed!




Other #MicroBlogs are here.  
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5 comments:

JustHeather said...

This is how our tree was growing up. A total mish-mash of family love, where we kids got to decorate it just "perfectly". I think we'll get a tree next year, I couldn't be bothered this year. And it'll be just like yours.
I have a gold one with a dolly in a bed/crib. It has my name and birthdate on it. :) I think we had a wreath like yours also. I now need to find my Garfield shrinky dink ornament.

MrsSpock said...

My mom has those same engraved gold ornaments for my siblings and I too! I tried to find the Enterprise at Hallmark but they were sold out. We got a Star Wars stocking and Star Wars ornament this year.

Dashy said...

That is quite a lot of lovely ornaments you got there! It's so pretty! We don't celebrate Christmas much here in my place, rarely do we get to see Christmas trees in homes. :)

Ms. Infertile said...

It's a lovely tree and I love Cthulhu; maybe one day I'll get a tree, I only have paper stars lanterns around my apartment, they are my favorites.

Lollipop Goldstein said...

Bookmarking the post so ChickieNob can see your Cthulhu ornament. She would love it.

Whenever we're in a store, we play "which one would you get" with the ornaments. Yesterday she picked a Hermione one. I picked Superman.

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