Trimming the Tree 2012
This is from last year, but I opted to use it again even though some of it is repetitive. I’m heartsick that I can’t have a tree this year. I’m wearing a boot, remember.
Every year I make the same statement, “I’m not doing this again.” Then the very next year I find myself just itching to get started with it. It is a big job, but oh what joy I get from unpacking each ornament and remembering from where it came. Two special ones came to us from John’s cousin who had visited her daughter in Germany. One ornament is an old man smoking his pipe (just what John did until a few years ago) and the other is old lady knitting. So appropriate for this old couple.
One point made in Sunday’s sermon was “a perfect Christmas is unattainable” and our preacher mentioned all the lights wouldn’t burn or maybe you had to be with kinfolks who got on your last nerve. Well, the lights are our problem AGAIN. Last year we couldn’t get the lower section to burn, but this year they burn, but not some in the middle. I tried to change bulbs over and over and finally just gave up and said “to heck with it.”
As I hung the little barn on the tree I remember the wonderful Georgia couple who gave it and then there’s the wreath with our names on it that our daughter made in 1979. Treasurers to say the least.
Among the specials are twelve little cross stitched ornaments representing the Twelve Days of Christmas – also made years ago.
One year my NYC relatives send us a box of special oranges and they came in a unique box – each orange had its own resting place in the Styrofoam and I now use it to hold some super precious breakable ornaments. Some have tatting on them, some have crochet and some are knitted. I must have been “touched” the year I made the four knitted ones. I had to string five or six hundred beads on the thread before the knitting started and the knitting needle size was 0000 – not much bigger than a straight pin. Even the needle I used for stringing was nothing but a wire with an eye. I now have it stored in a little jar with a note reading “do not destroy.” This one is so little it could be lost without even trying.
The last items to be hung are the snowflakes. Many are crocheted, but some are tatted, too. The most treasured of these are a few tatted by a dear friend who is no longer with us. Gwen Phillips could make every picot the same size and not all of us can do that – I for one. Whatever Gwen did she did it well.
Just the stretching of the snowflakes is a chore. I use a board like fabric is rolled on in the store – cover it with waxed paper and stretch each flake with straight pins, then use equal parts Elmers Glue and water to wet them. I keep the pins in a separate box and use them for the same thing over and over because they get so much glue on them.
For me making new snowflakes or other ornaments it some of the best of country living.
Christmas Tree 2012