Tree Trimming

Not yet for the big tree, but I put up the small tree with our Hallmark miniatures last night. Formerly these ornaments were on a small tree less than a foot high and that little tree set on top of our ceppo; the setup looked like this last year.

This year I bought the Hallmark miniatures tree for the ornaments since I had a coupon. The tree itself is twice the size of the other tree, so I was sure I'd have blank spaces. I had bought about eleven small ornaments (two sleds, four stockings, and five candy canes) at A.C. Moore, but knew if the tree turned up short there were more mini ornaments at Hobby Lobby.

Gad. I managed to fit the mini Rudolph ornament and the Santas from many lands set from this year, but even with the tree being larger I couldn't fit the Peanuts nativity set on the branches in front (I usually put plain lightbulb-shaped ornaments on the back of the tree since no one looks at it)! I guess I will just set them up in front of the tree like a real manger set.

First I cleaned all the fall things out of the foyer and put them into a Xerox box for storage in the garage until January. Then I dusted and polished the furniture down there to start with a clear pallet. I decorated the tree upstairs while watching White House Christmas 2006 (good heavens, it's red). After I put the ornaments on I put a red-and-green garland on the tree that Mom used to have on her little Christmas tree. I am not satisfied with the garland; I am terrible with garlands since I am a tinsel person. But the tree is too small for tinsel, I think, unless I trim it a little, and I had wanted to use Mom's garland. James suggests the garland, even though it's only 1/2 inch wide, is a bit heavy for the tree. I think he's right.

Maybe I'll trim the tinsel after all...

There are some pseudo-boxes underneath, and also the little toy airplane and the lion and the lamb underneath (the ones you see in the ceppo photo). I still need a cloth or doily to go under it.

I have put Christmas plaques up in the place where I hang seasonal plaques, and underneath that the caroling figures of "Anne Shirley" and "Diana Barry." Two angels sit on the tier table, right now with a Christmas cake between them.

The wooden reindeer I bought at Christmas in Lithia is at the foot of the divider where the bouquet of fall leaves usually is. He looks a bit bare. Above him sits a dangly-legged figure I saw at Michael's and just had to get. It is a woodland figure of a moose sitting down. He has a scarf around his neck and sitting on his left shoulder is a squirrel.

As a child of the 1960s, you can see why this called to me. <g>

It's not finished yet, so there's no pic.

The remainder of the ceppo is upstairs on the china cabinet, with the nativity set and the St. Nicholas in the woods figure in its usual place. I have placed a small collection of resin and wood old-world Santas around it.

The table is still in fall colors and I should get to it next, except I am really anxious to get the village on the mantelpiece after all that work!

(So did anyone catch the Mythbusters holiday edition last night? What a riot, especially Adam and Jamie's Rube Goldberg Christmas device triggered by Mentos and Diet Pepsi [those guys are really enamoured with that chemical reaction...]!)