Merry Christmas...

Wishing you all a safe and happy Christmas!

(Me and my little sister at Christmas,  around 1957 or 1958.)

The Miracle of Christmas...

And an angel appeared to Mary and said,

 

(Court, Christmas Angel, Nursery School Play, circa 1994)

 

 "Rejoice, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!"

 

Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God."

 

(Amanda, Chirstmas Dove, Nursery School Play, circa 1990)

 

"And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus."

 

And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them...

(Circa 1950/1960 manger that beloned to my mom)

 

...and the glory of the Lord shone around them;

and they were terribly frightened.

 

And the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid;

for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy

which shall be for all the people; 

 

...for today in the city of David there has been born

for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. "

 

"And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths, and lying in a manger."

 

Wishing you all a blessed,

 

 

... peace-filled Christmas.

 

Donna

 

The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pa pum pum...

... but I don't ever recall hearing about a cat in the stable on that glorious Christmas Eve.

I can see that decorating is going to be a major challenge this year (vbg).

Wishing you and yours a lovely week.

Donna

I found the perfect manger!

Last month I showed you these sweet little white nativity figurines that I found while out shopping.


I liked them so much that I bought one for myself ...


...and one for my Christmas giveaway.


So how lucky was I when I spotted this vintage manger for $3.50 at Goodwill in Boston a couple of weeks ago! I couldn't remember exactly how big the nativity figurines were, but it looked like it might be a good size for them.


It's better than good - it's almost as though they were custom made for each other! As a finishing touch I set a mini ornament in the manger's loft - the Christmas star.


I placed the manger on a small table in front of the family room windowseat.


As it turns out, the table is also the perfect size for the manger.

I love it when all the pieces of a puzzle fit together so easily because sometimes in our little house, and in life in general, that's not always the case!

And over the past 24 hours we got socked with a good amount of snow here in the northeast. I'll try to share photos soon - freshly fallen snow is so beautiful (even to me, who is longing for spring!)

Donna

Sweet memories, a manger, and the new bird tree...

I have such sweet memories of my Nana, whose china I proudly display on my dining room hutch.

(click any photos to enlarge)

I so enjoy decorating the hutch at Christmastime, and I like to think that she's right here with me as I unwrap each delicate nativity figurine that will go into the manger...


That's a photo of my nana when she was a young woman, in the center of the plate rack hanging above the hutch (between the two empty vases donning lampshades that may someday come in handy for lamps that I don't yet own!)


The manger/nativity takes center stage on the hutch every year. The oversized white figurines were found years ago at a Salvation Army for a song... Then I found the oversized manger several years ago at Target and couldn't believe my luck - it was the perfect size!

The candles I'm about to show you are very special to me. After my mom passed away in 1996, my dad didn't have the heart to decorate for Christmas. But a couple of years ago, he changed his mind so we went through all the old boxes of Mom's decorations and ornaments (Mom loved decorating for Christmas!) Dad only wanted to put up a tree and nothing else, so I got a lot of Mom's old decorations for my house. These are the things I grew up with as a kid and they bring back such sweet memories...


This tall glass encrusted candle, in its own little stand, is titled A Home in the Country, and it features a beautiful, snowy New England style scene that wraps around the whole candle. My mom purchased these in the early sixties. That's a baby photo of my mom next to it...


I wish my photos captured the beauty of these encrusted images...


On the other side of the shelf is the companion candle titled The Skating Pond. Mom used to put these on the fireplace mantel every year. And that's my baby picture next to it...


Here's a closeup of one of the skaters... I'm sure these would be beautiful if they were illuminated from within by burning the candles, but my mom used them strictly as decoration, so that's what I will do, too.

Every year I decorate my "bird tree," which up until this year was the little white one in my dining room bay window. But my bird collection outgrew that tiny tree.


Luckily I had this skinny tree stashed downstairs from about 15 years ago (sometimes it pays to be a packrat!). It was the perfect size to squeeze in next to the hutch, and it allowed me to hang all my bird ornaments in one place.

The tree is also decorated with a silver jingle bell garland, white berries, frosted sprigs, and white lights. The most sentimental part is the tree topper...


... which isn't really a tree topper at all. Again, it's one of the decorations my mom used to put out every year at Christmas time... just a little glass candle with glass ornamentsand silver foil leaves on a little round stand. There used to be two of them and I hope to find the other one in dad's basement some day!

The tree is actually sitting on a stack of magazines to give it some height, so I hid those with a vintage embroidered table topper and then placed a nest at the base of the tree.

These are just some closeups of the many bird ornaments on the tree. My mom's favorite bird, the cardinal, is so special...

And you might recognize the pastel bluebird I got in Concord at the end of October, at the top left of the photo...

Here's a hummingbird (with a broken wing), a reminder of summer spent on the deck watching them at our feeder... And the Carolina wrens who make their home in the birdhouse by our front gate each year. And everyone needs a little bluebird of happiness in their tree, right?

The beautiful white glittery bird right under the silver sparkle bird at the top right is a gift from my friend Jill (who I am trying to convince to start a blog!) She has incredible taste... She's the one who also gave me the Christmas lamb that I just posted about!

There's Mr. Bluejuay that I picked up in Concord (the same day I got the bluebird ornament)... He is very happy to be living in the bird tree, and he reminds me of all my bluejay friends who come to the door for peanuts..

There are Baltimore Orioles, a robin, chickadees, finches, nuthatches and so many more birds, all enjoying the Christmas season in our dining room... How lucky am I?

So this is where the bird ornaments will spend their Christmases from this point on. (I am sooo glad I hung onto this tiny tree!! It just fits!)

And the glow from the lights at night is just magical!

Tomorrow we'll head back into the living room and I'll show you closeups of the fireplace (of course our little cottage is soooo tiny, you can see it from here!!)

Till then, wishing you all a wonderful weekend!


Donna

Three mangers...and a ring, once lost, is found...

(click on any photos to enlarge)

I was so lucky to be in the right place at the right time to get these beautiful white nativity figures - Salvation Army being the right place, and "shortly after these nativity figurines arrived" being the right time. (At least I'm assuming these large-sized figures had just arrived because I can't think of any other reason they hadn't already been scooped up at the ridiculously low price of under $10 for the whole set!!!)

For several Christmases I just set them out on the hearth or hutch, but about four years ago I happened to spot this beautiful oversized manger at Target! It looked as though it was made specifically for my figurines, right down to the little flat roof for the praying angel to kneel on...

As a finishing touch, I found a sparkly star ornament to hang from the roof of the manger. I never get tired of looking at this nativity scene... It is definitely one of my favorites...



This beautiful white nativity set was another 'right time/right place' purchase. I found it at another second hand store on a 50% off day a couple of years after purchasing the first manger figurines. It's a four piece ceramic set and I absolutely love it. It's also one of my favorites (can you have two favorites?)...

But this manger/nativity set is my absolute favorite... This is the set that belonged to my mom... As a matter of fact, I just posted a 1980's photo of it from my mom's house. This is the nativity set she lovingly put in the 'well' above her front door each and every Christmas.

My mother became ill during 1996 and passed away on December 21st of that year. The manger was never put out that year. No Christmas decorations were.

It took my dad 11 years to get to the point where he felt he could do a little decorating around his house. My mom was always the one who did the decorating. I think it was very hard for him to face doing it alone. My sister and I had offered to help him over the years, but he wasn't ready and he always declined.

But last Christmas, eleven years after mom passed away, dad decided he wanted to put up their tree and some ornaments. He wanted to just keep it simple with the tree and ornaments, so my sister and I started going through all the old Christmas decorations stored in cardboard boxes down in the basement. After getting out the tree and ornaments for dad, we divided the rest of the decorations between us.

It was wonderful, but also bittersweet, going through all of mom's beautiful old Christmas decorations, lovingly wrapped in newspapers from the first week of January, 1996, which is when had been put away for the last time... I felt like Mom was there with us as we unwrapped her decorations, each one bringing back so many memories. It was so exciting to see the manger again, which now has a permanent home at our house.

As I was unwrapping the decorations in the very last box, I found an incredible gift... I believe it was a sign from mom that she was, indeed, there with us that day...

There, hardly visible in a corner of the very last cardboard box I was going through, was the mother's ring we'd given Mom a few years before she passed away (although the stones look black, they're actually dark blue sapphires). In early 1996, shortly before mom got sick, she told me how upset she was because she couldn't find her ring. She always wore it, but one day she noticed it was missing from her finger. She had searched high and low, but never found it. The only thing she could think of was that it had fallen off her finger without her realizing it.

Apparently that January of 1996, when my mom was putting her Christmas decorations away for the year, the ring slipped off of her finger and into one of the boxes. And there it remained for 11 years, until last Christmas, when we finally felt ready to go through all of Mom's decorations.

I wear mom's ring every day now. I'm certain she had something to do with me finding it among newspapers and glitter in the bottom of the very last cardboard box I opened...

I love you, Mom... Merry Christmas...

Donna