Happy Vintage Ornament Holidays

My husband and I haven't put up a Christmas tree since we moved to Santa Cruz in 1998.  We spent the holidays with our families in Southern California so it didn't make sense. This year, around Thanksgiving, we got sentimental and fell in love with a tiny tree at our local market. (Note the tiny theme going on. ^_^)

The store began displaying Christmas trees about a week before Thanksgiving. We walked past them nearly everyday to get groceries for dinner. The piney smell romanced us. We'd purposefully brush by the stand of trees or I'd touch one to get a touch of its scent on my hands. Then we'd walk home talking about what we'd miss not decorating during the Christmas season.

The small "table top" trees were $19.95 each and we decided to buy one. I'd secretly picked out one during the many times that we strolled by. To make sure that the tree didn't go to another home, we drove down to the store a couple days before Thanksgiving and bought "the one". The cashiers had barely noticed that their store was selling Christmas trees already. We may have been the first purchase of the year.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Rory climbed a ladder into the upper reaches of the garage to retrieve boxes of ornaments and lights that we'd not seen for 15 years. There were ones that we bought together but for 2012, we mostly used ornaments that belonged to his family. He'd inherited many from his mother and some them date back to the 1950s.  

You don't get craftsmanship or whimsy like this anymore:

The strutting pig and dog at the top? Who makes anything like that any more? There used to be a frogman in that set, Rory said, but he sadly broke years ago. 

But delicate miniature works of art like this glass spider survived the multiple moves and decades: 

I got all swept up in the vintage ornament thing and went shopping online for some "new" ones to add to our collection. When I showed my husband my picks, he responded,  "They're cute and beautiful but what's special about ornaments is the time that you spend with them. They're about memories." 

Every night, as soon as things get dark, we plug in our little tree. We situated the Christmas tree in the dining room so we can see it while cooking and eating (what we spend a lot of time doing). It has given us utter joy to see piggy and the meditative mushroom again, thinking about holidays past, present and future.

This year has been a roller coaster for all of us. I'm taking a break till and will be back after January 1.

I hope you and your family enjoy a

holiday full of peace and good food wherever you may be!