Tuesday night

We had an impromptu G family dinner on Tuesday night before my brother and his family left early Wednesday morning.

After dinner, we gathered at my mother's assisted living place and had a family picture taken.

My J had requested a family picture at Thanksgiving--all of us with Grandma--but the vacation had been hectic and I did not follow through. Monday night, J came to me very upset that we (a) had not had a family dinner while the G family was here at Christmas and (b) that I had done nothing at Thanksgiving OR Christmas to get a family picture, in his words, "before Grandma . . . you know." So we threw something together.

Bless my sister's heart for agreeing to have the dinner at her house and she and I hurried on Tuesday to hustle up some grub. We had a nice dinner together--I think people get together "over food" in a different way than when they get together for just visiting.

Then we went to my mother's facility to take the group picture. Here are the shots taken with my camera. You can see other shots on my sister's blog http://claireysplace.blogspot.com/.

Back row: Co & Ja, my brother and his wife; Te & Cl, my sister and her husband; P & B, my husband and I; my daughter L; my son Ty.

Next row: My nephew A, Grandma, my son Jac, my nephews Re, Ta and W.

Front row: My nephew Ch, my niece M, and my nephew Ry.

Same folks . . . . my son J is sitting by me and my daughter L and my son T are standing behind the couch. My brother's kids are on the front row (Ch, M, and Ry), sitting in a chair (A), and on the couch the second from the left (Re). My sister's boys (Ta and W) are the two on the right end of the couch.

Take three . . . . We were missing my sister's married kids J & S and C & D, as well as Cl's daughter L & her son D (Mom's great-grandson), but for the picture we did have 100% of Mom's grandchildren who still live at home with their parents.

My J, that was a good idea--glad you kept after me to have these two activities.

Co and Cl, are any of these three shots better than your shots with your camera? If so, I can get you copies.

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2009

Trust me to have 1000 things to do just before Christmas . . . . and it was a race to the end but I squeaked by.

One of the fun things we did was decorate a tree for my brother's family. They were coming to spend Christmas at my mother's house and "bringing a little tree." Being the Christmas tree nut that I am, how could I tolerate a "little tree"? So on Dec. 23rd, we found this beautiful noble fir tree for just $10, and decorated it with some of my "left over" decorations. B strung some lights outside on the bushes, too. We left the lights on inside and outside for my brother's family to discover as they pulled in late that night. It was a fun surprise.

Christmas Eve, we went to B's parents' house for a pizza dinner. Here are some of the family who attended.

My brother-in-law NK and my father-in-law.

Our nephew WK and T.

My sister-in-law GK, L, J, my mother-in-law and KM.

The back of D's head (don't know his last name), Bryan's sister, our great-niece, our niece's husband and our niece.

By the time we arrived back home, T went directly to bed. We normally have certain Christmas Eve activities but we got carried away wrapping packages (I put the other kids to work wrapping--they'll need counseling later). They helped me until I sent them to bed at 11:30 p.m. and I stayed up until about 3 (YAWN) finishing up.

Here are the three kiddos on Christmas morning. Before anyone could open presents, we made everyone sit down and we did a shortened version of our traditional Christmas Eve activities--listened to the Christmas story from the scriptures and read our nativity book (and the boys still argued over who pulled the tabs on the 3-D book). :-)

Here is the Christmas morning gift unwrapping melee. Ha ha!

Here is our dog unwrapping her squeeky toy. Interestingly enough, she only unwrapped her own gifts--this toy and two bags of dog snacks. She left all the other presents alone. What a smart pooch.

After everything was unwrapped, we said, "Sometimes Santa goes down a different chimney. Where might that be?"

They finally figured out that it might be downstairs. Here are the boys unwrapping the XBox360 they'd just about decided Santa wasn't bringing this year.

Ho Ho Ho. Merry Christmas!

I made breakfast for everyone.

I spent the rest of the day getting ready for Christmas dinner with B's parents. B had given me a few more plates to go with my Lenox Christmas set and I wanted to use them. I decided that I should use my nice flatware, too. My mother and I bought it for me back in 1983 when I was earning $4.00 per hour. I've never used that flatware before--I had to polish it before we could use it! I also used some glasses I've never used before. What am I saving all of it for if not for "now"?

At the last minute, we found out we were having five more people come. So we hurriedly set up a second table (in the kitchen) for my two boys and B's great-nephew. The rest of us sat at this table.

Here are my in-laws and B's two great-nieces. We put L in charge of finding things for the girls to do. H (right) is a year older than L and the little one, J, is 3. After trying to keep up with J for several hours, L decided she was glad she didn't have a little sister who would need to share a bedroom and would get into L's "stuff." :-)

We had a nice Christmas. Hope you did, too.

Sunday 12.20.09

Today, I went to the church meeting at my mother's assisted living facility. I was asked to be the chorister. Being asked to conduct the music is always a dilemma for me. My mother, aka Mrs. Music/Mrs. Chorister, was always the one conducting the music. Yes, she taught us during family home evenings how to conduct hymns but for the past several decades, I've avoided EVER leading the music, EVER. Then this year, I have been asked twice. At my nephew's baptism, my mother was not in attendance. This time she was. I knew if she were her old self, she would have loved seeing me conduct, despite my not being on par with HER former conducting skills. I always have reservations and so I stammered and stuttered about how poorly I conduct but I agreed to do it. HA! Mom slept through all three hymns. Wouldn't you know it!

German Ornament Tree

Yesterday, as I was taking pictures to complete my blog about the status of Christmas prep at my house, I got carried away taking pictures of my German ornament tree. Because it is my pet project at Christmas, I thought I'd blog a bit about it, not because it will be interesting to anyone else but because I'm a nut about the ornaments on this particular tree, so why not?! If a blog isn't for blogging about things one is interested in, what is the purpose of a blog??

This is my tree in the front hall that has all of my German ornaments on it. You see it is on a little table because my dog loves to chew on wooden things and many of the German ornaments are made of wood. Luckily, the tree is not too tall for the hall ceiling.

I love having a tree in the hall. My other tree is in the front room and we keep the doors closed to that room most of the time so I never see the tree (well, "never" is a bit too strong). With this tree in the hall, I can see it when I come and go around the house.

I went on my LDS mission to West Germany and I spent just one Christmas there. Frankly, I don't remember what the Christmas trees looked like in the homes I visited. I think they also don't put them up and leave them up like we do.

(This picture is from: http://www.vistawide.com/german/christmas/german_christmas_traditions.htm.) The Germans usually put up their trees on Christmas Eve. This would certainly be the case if they were to use real candles because the tree needs to be fresh so it doesn't catch on fire.

Prior to my mission, two friends of mine--Marian and Tweet--were crazy Germany ornament enthusiasts. Just before leaving on my mission, I had helped Marian decorate her Christmas tree and thought to myself that she had a tremendous amount of ornaments, and I didn't see what the big deal was about those German ornaments. Cute, yes, but what was the fuss? Then I went on my mission to the land of German ornaments. :-)

My first city: Itzehoe. Beautiful! I was here four months and I had two companions while there. The branch was actually located in Glueckstadt.

My second city: Luebeck! Beautiful! I actually lived in Bad Schwartau but the chapel was in Luebeck. I had two companions while there.

This is my third city: Hannover. I was there for eight months. I had four companions while there. (MTC (2) + Itzehoe (4) + Luebeck (4) + Hannover (8) = 18 months.)

At the end of my LDS mission in Germany, my family came to get me and we spent time seeing the beautiful country of what was then West Germany.

One of the places we visited was Rothenburg ob der Tauber, an old walled village that has been well preserved in its very old-time beauty. This is often the Germany you see in paintings and on postcards.

This is probably the most often photographed "vista" in Rothenburg (below) and, thanks to Marian and my mother, I have paintings of this scene hanging in my living room.

Anyway, back to ornaments--in Rothenburg, there was a HUGE Christmas store that was on both sides of a street. Each store was HUGE and filled with "Christmas." The following is a photograph from the Internet of the INSIDE of one of the stores (and this photograph is not showing the whole store, either).

Maybe you can see for yourself why it was a bit difficult to resist the charms of this store. Anyway, my mother purchased some Christmas ornaments for my sister and me and purchased some for herself, too. I tried to choose ornaments that I either loved or that reminded me of people and things on my mission.

This is one of the ornaments my mother purchased for me there--a cute couple in traditional German clothing (which, by the way, essentially no one wore in northern Germany). In the photograph, you also see just to the right a bit of a cute angel playing the cymbals. Mom also bought that for me at that time. Both of these ornaments are only about one inch tall.

This angel ornament was probably my favorite of the ornaments we purchased there and I selected three of these because I liked the design of this angel so much. You might also see the price tag just above the ornament. I leave them on. I want to remember where they were purchased.

After I returned home from my mission and during the years between then and my getting married, my friends Marian and Tweet, when they visited Germany, would bring back ornaments for my Christmas presents. The following are pictures of the wide range of the types of ornaments they have given me. (In fact, as I was surveying the tree, trying to find ornaments from Tweet and Marian, I realized just how many of my ornaments came from them!)

From this gold colored nativity, you can see that the ornaments aren't all out of wood. If fact, I think it would be safe to say that many of the metal ornaments on my tree came from Tweet and Marian. This ornament is probably three inches tall, one of the taller ones.

This is another one I remember them giving me--a cute little picnic table, maybe 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 inches tall.

Here is a wax Christmas tree that they gave me. For a long time, it was my only wax ornament.

This was a heart made of whole cloves that Marian gave to me. I believe she either made it or it was made by a German friend of hers, Frau Trum, if I remember correctly. There are also a lot of other heart-shaped ornaments on the tree, I add parenthetically. :-)

Since my mission, I have also purchased German ornaments. Here is one example of a wooden ornament I purchased, probably from the Kathe Wolfhart store via the postal service. This was a very expensive way to acquire ornaments. Her store would send out hard-bound catalogs that you had to purchase. There was also a minimum purchase amount--something like $50 or something, which also made it expensive. It was just too expensive to do very often.

With the advent of the Internet (long live the Internet!), you can purchase things from Kathe Wolfhart's store at bestofchristmas.com. However, I have become disenchanted with the newer ornaments she is offering. I'm sure if I could visit the store, I would find the older kinds of ornaments that I like because the stores are so big and so full of so many things. There is also a Kathe Wolfhart's store in the U.S. (accessible online through the same link) so shipping and import duties are now much better although still not cheap.

I have found some other websites that sell German ornaments. The next two ornaments were purchased from christkindl-markt.com. I think this site must operate seasonally--or at least there is a bigger variety of items on its site nearer Christmas. A woman named "Patty" runs this site. I guess you can't go wrong with a name like that, can you?! Someone named Patty selling German ornaments . . . now there's an idea!

This angel ornament is my favorite of all the ornaments on the whole tree (and the picture doesn't seem to do it justice). It was more expensive than most of the ornaments I've purchased, so I splurged and bought just one. I have never before nor since spent that much on any one ornament. However, since falling so soundly in love with it, I've searched on the Internet for it high and low but it is no where to be found. There is a third angel behind the shaved wood tree.

Also in the photograph is a mushroom ornament. The mushroom is a German good luck symbol.

These natural colored stars are also from Christ Kindl Markt. I really love them. They came in a set of six, if I recall. I've wondered if I need more of these. :-) Hmmm. Not this year but in the coming years??

Here is a pewter ornament. I love the painted pewter. As I said before, many of my painted pewter ornaments came from Tweet and Marian and the two of them got me interested in the pewter. However, I purchased this one online, probably from decorationwarehouse.com.

In fact, decorationwarehouse is probably the best year-round site for German ornaments and other German merchandise. I look for sales at this site and try to spend as little as possible for ornaments. I have picked up some really good deals. For the most part, I purchase smaller scale ornaments, not over two inches. Besides preferring the smaller ornaments, the smaller ones are usually less expensive. However, I don't constantly buy German ornaments, either; just when something really strikes my fancy. :-)

Peeking from behind that house is a Tigger ornament B purchased at Disneyworld on our honeymoon.

This advent wreath is a Christian Ulbricht. I am particularly partial to his designs. This was probably one of my early Kathe Wolfhart postal purchases. It reminds me of advent wreaths I saw often on my mission. I love all the tiny parts of this ornament.

Bryan purchased the pre-lit tree for the hall for me for our wedding anniversary a few years ago (the year before getting the ornament-chewing dog). It needed a tree topper and I found this online after that Christmas. However, this is the first year I've been able to use it now that we have dog-proofed the tree. This is made of straw and was probably made in some Scandinavian country. I also have some straw ornaments on the tree. I think the look compliments the German ornaments. With the tree on the table, it is almost too tall for a human to see this tree-topper but I think it looks nice.

This beaded ornament was one from Kathe Wolfhart's store that Mom bought for me. It also has that "straw" look of the tree topper.

Probably before I had children, I purchased a kit from the Hearthsong catalog (now online at hearthsong.com) to make beeswax ornaments. There are several different molds and I could have made them natural wax color--yellowish--or red. I opted for red since it is my favorite color. I love these. Hearthsong doesn't carry these kits this year. I looked for them online the other day just out of curiosity but I could not find any kits.

(The gold "halo" effect on the angel is actually from an ornament from a tiny tree B gave me for my office back when I worked as an attorney and we were first dating. The tree was a tiny live tree and it has passed on but I still use the ornaments every year on my German tree.) I don't think he even knew what a Christmas tree nut I was. Way to go, B!

A certain number of the ornaments come from my mother's ornament collection, like this bottle brush wreath. I think it looks at home with the German ornaments.

This is one of a series of six ornaments that were made by Bing and Grondahl and I also have the series of six matching plates. B gave these to me for some of our first Christmases. I keep the plates up year-round.

Boy, who was the photographer of that shot?? Oh yes, I was.

This is an example of another "category" (loosely termed) of ornaments on the tree--we purchased a set of three of these nativity ornaments on our honeymooon (the category being "ornaments purchased on our honeymoon").

Below it is a partial picture of a bead-and-shaved-wood ornament purchased for me by my mother from Kathe Wolfhart's store in Rothenburg. I think I have about six of these shaved wood ornaments. Each is unique.

Also from hearthsong.com, I purchased a kit for making beaded ornaments. I don't know that this one is the prettiest one I've made but I made a lot of them and like the sparkle they add.

Here is probably the largest wooden German ornament on the tree--a sewing machine with sewing notions. I purchased this from Kathe Wolfhart through the post. This was the time when I learned to always check the size of an ornament before I purchased it. It is still really cute, even if it is of a larger scale. It is probably four or five inches long.

Note also the shaved wood/bead ornament, another one of those purchased at the end of my mission. Note the plate (purchased at Uncle and Auntie's in Santa Clara, UT)--there are two different designs and the other design is shown in the last picture of this post.

Note the nut cracker-styled ornament--it is made in China. My friends Tweet and Marian won't allow ANY Chinese-made ornaments on their trees but I do, if they're well made. They also make great "filler" for the back of the tree--I like to decorate all the way around a tree, even if you can't see the back side of it. It is my theory that it makes the front of the tree look fuller.

I also have glass ornaments on the tree--this is a set of 12 that Mom purchased for me in Germany. I have also added another 6 or 12 more that I purchased somewhere in the U.S.

Note also the balsa wood snowflakes--I love 'em (courtesy of Tweet and Marian) and the accordian-playing angel (courtesy of Mom and Kathe Wolfhart).

This picture shows a lot of things--I decided to wrap up with this shot. Left to right across the top of the picture:

• first, a red wax angel I made;
• second, a red and white stripped ball ornament that L said was one of her favorite ornaments (maybe because she likes peppermint candy!);
• third, a straw "pinecone" ornament;
• fourth, a red wooden heart from that initial "batch" after my mission;
• fifth, the other pattern for the little plates;
• sixth, a little Danish elf on a "swing" given to me by a friend--her sister made it;
• seventh, a wooden postal box with a bird atop it from Marian and Tweet,
• eighth, a side view of a beaded ornament I made.

Along the bottom of the picture:

• first, another balsa wood snowflake from Tweet and Marian;
• second, a set of double candles that my mother purchased for me at a Christmas gift shop next to Andelin's Gable House (both of which are long gone) years before I ever had my own tree;
• third, a big heart made of ? ? paper maiche maybe, also purchased at the Gable House, and in two different sizes; they're some of my very favorite "basic" decorations;
• fourth, a tiny Santa ornament;
• fifth, a red and white berry pick;
• sixth, a tiny red bell from the original batch of things from my mission, and
• seventh, a natural-colored angel (sounds like a strange description!) with just touches of color.

Well, here we are, a couple of hours after I started on my quick little post about my tree! I had to go back and back and back and back to photograph yet other ornaments to blog about. You can see I'm mildly interested in the decorations, yes? I don't think I've ever done a longer post in one sitting. Hope you enjoyed your nap because I'm sure you fell asleep a long time ago.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas underway? Check.

Here at my house, Christmas is underway.

* * *

Outside lights up? Check.

(Probably more to be added, I don't know. B added outdoor decorations right up to Christmas last year! Personally, I'm still missing the sparkling snowmen out there.)

* * *

Inside decorations up? Check.

(Well, I need to add two more Santas. I haven't put everything out that I usually do but there's enough.

We'll see if I hold firm on this or if I'm still putting things out clear up to Christmas. I hope not.)

* * *

Our "Shiny Tree" up and decorated? Check.

(Only shiny things can go on that tree! Thanks to L and friend NB for decorating it. I think they thought they'd bitten off more than they could chew. Me and my rules--tree topper and ribbon first, then character ornaments,

then large round ornaments, then gradually smaller round ornaments, then metallic bows, then picks, and whatever you do, decorate the whole tree, even if no one can see the back side. They opted not to put on a big box of ornaments. That was fine with me. I feel like that every year, too.)

My German ornament tree up and decorated? Check.

(It is up on a table so the dog cannot chew the wooden ornaments! I love to decorate this tree myself. I love unwrapping each and every German ornament. The tree doesn't look quite like I'd wish but I haven't had time to figure out what is wrong--which is good because it might mean I think something needs to be purchased to complete it. Being OCD is tough with things like this.)

* * *

The advent tree out and slowly being decorated as we count down to Christmas? Check.

(Thanks Cori for that fun tree--it is a must-do every year!)

* * *

Other little tree up and decorated? Check.

(Just a 2 foot tree--L wanted it set up.)

* * *

Christmas cards underway? Check.

(I pick up our picture insert tomorrow. Must buy stamps! Labels and letters are ready!)

* * *

Neighbor gifts underway? Check.

(L is punching out the gift tags as I type.)

* * *

Christmas shopping started? Check.

(With more to go.)

* * *

Thinking about emulating my friend QV and starting already to wrap gifts? Check.

(Still just "thinking" about wrapping! Nice idea, though!)

* * *

Thinking about baking? Check.

(I think this every year but every year I'm somehow derailed. Maybe someday . . . or maybe it will really happen this year. Who knows?! Sometimes we've received so many goodies that I couldn't stand the thought of one more calorie-laden snack in this house!)

* * *

Amaryllis starting to bloom? Check.

($1.00 each at Ace; we bought two.)

* * *

Wishing, like I do every year at Christmas, that I could go to Germany? Check.

(I will probably never go back but I have wished it every single Christmas for the last twenty-four years, and I think that wish is growing with intensity as the years pass by, perhaps as the impossibility of the wish has become increasingly clear.)

* * *

Christmas underway? Check.

Still more to do before Christmas can come? Check!

[Completely confidential note to self: NEVER, NO NEVER ADD PICTURES TO BLOG AFTER YOU'VE ADDED TEXT!)