To provide some semblance of order, some of the branches have themes.  The top 12″ of the tree is filled with angels who represent our daughter in law who lost her life way too early. 

 There is a branch of needlework ornaments that dear friends have made me; there’s a branch dedicated to the beer served at my son’s wild party when we first left him on his own for a weekend (20 years later, I am still learning some of the goings-on!); one branch holds German ornaments when represent the 5 years our family spent there while John was in the Army; another branch holds beautiful glass ornaments of sweets (does that need further explanation?) 

That Smokey the Bear reminds us of when John caught on fire while buring leaves–a few minor scars but more to his ego than his body.  The green and red silk balls are just two of many that I made while John spent our first year of marriage in Viet Nam.

 
So these are my trees.  I hope you enjoyed the tour.  A lot of you have commented asking how I get it all done…after I get through the holiday, I will post a blurb about how it all happens!   I hope you and your families have a wonderful Christmas holiday!

We have a landing which is really the grandchildren’s playroom…at least that is what we built it to be.  It overlooks the living area and who knew the acoustics would magnify every laugh and scream to 5000 decibels?  Anyway, as long as there are not more than 3 of them together at a time, the sound is bearable…besides, what kind of grandma would tell them to stop the glee?? 

This tree is our tribute to the red, white and blue.  Having been a military family, patriotism is in our blood. 

 The flags were all tea-dyed by me, those hobby horses were made from more of those flags which I found at a craft show—lucky me, they are WONDERFUL and such a clever use of all the flag parts, even the stick!  The toys are all red, white, and blue—I find them wherever.  The top of the tree is a Muffy bear dressed in her finest Lady Liberty outfit and she’s holding a flag.

This arrangement is on the landing on the stairs.  I love this basket–it’s a World War 1 ammunition basket and it’s about 26″ wide and 32″ high.  There are four partitions in it that each held a round of ammo.  During the rest of the year, it sits on my mantel holding sunflowers…from ammo to sunflowers!

This is the tree in the master bedroom…these are the kind of ornaments that we used on our tree when I was a child.  They were magical then for me, and they are still magical. 

These are not my actual ornaments which is a shame because we had some that came from my Dad’s family that had his birth year (1913!) on them.  In his later years, forgetting that those were cherished ornaments Dad gave the box of them to his cleaning lady when he was in a downsizing frenzy.  When we found out a week or so later, we called the cleaning lady and begged for the ornaments back but she said she had “disposed of them”…so sadly, those are long gone.  These are ebay replacements—no history, but every bit as pretty.  The colors are now faded and the look is very soft but it just sparkles.

  The bed has a number of Christmas needlepoint pillows–no, I did not stitch them, most were given to me by my sister and she didn’t stitch them either! 

The “Skates Sharpened” sign was painted by my friend Tony who owns Feathernesters in Richmond (a WONDERFUL shopping experience!)

 And my favorites are from my grandchildren.  I filled in with papier mache stars painted gold.

I bend the back branches to the sides so the tree can scoot up to the wall as closely as possible.  I used to have a tree on the island counter top instead of this one but I would rather give up floor space than counter space.  This is another red and white color scheme!  A collection of old kitchen baking toys, cookie cutters, gingerbread men, and some cottage-y looking newer ornaments decorate this tree.  The red and white gingham balls I found on ebay—they’re from the 50’s which probably is the reason I am drawn to them…maybe we even had some of them on my childhood tree! 

I used to have a lot of delightful real gingerbread ornaments that were dipped in wax to preserve them.  They had little plaid gingham scarves…one day I came home to find NO more gingerbread on the lower branches and the scarves were all piled up by the dog’s bed!!   I know Maggie thought they were mighty tasty!

This one is one of my favorites! 

The stockings were cut from an old “cutter” quilt.  That is one so full of holes—or mouse bites—that it is really not salvageable except maybe a small portion.  So I cut them into stocking and mitten shapes, worked a blanket stitch on the edges to finish them off a bit,  then I painted them with fabric stiffener which was kind of a pain, THEN I realized that the stockings had enough body to them that I could just skip the stiffening effect.  I hung them with miniature clothes pins. 

  There are several different size clear bulbs which look like soap bubbles, and I found on line some images of old laundry soap labels which I copied, reduced, glued onto kraft paper,  pinked the edges and hung with more of the clothes pins. 

This room makes it fun to do laundry!

This tree was so fun to put together…I made the pears from a pattern from the Need’l Love Company by Renee Nanneman…I love her designs…crafty and classy, not to mention easy to execute.  The pears are made from yellow velveteen, stuffed with fiberfill, then I used blush (from my make-up drawer!) to create a rosy color, then added a little bit of mica for sparkle.

The partridge is a bird I found in a craft store…and it has sparked many conversations as to what really IS a partridge, and what does one look like?  Pat Hahndorf gave me another bird a few years ago which I think is more partridge-y however this one is glued so well to the nest, which is glued securely to the tree, I cannot removed it without destroying it!  At some point I will swap it out…but the technique and the desire to fix it has to happen at the exact time so I can act on it!