Christmas Memories

So that was the Christmas holidays, that was.

Tonight I'm looking at the tree for the last time as tomorrow it will all be packed away for another year, along with all the memories of Christmasses past.

Now I'm not going to get nostalgic and sentimental here, although I confess that since our children have left home, I allow myself a little private nostalgia session when I look at the decorations on the tree which span all their growing up years, and more. It's so easy to remember them when they were tiny and they were in total awe of the sparkly decorations. I used to lift them both up and tell them to look for the tree fairy who lived in the Christmas tree. I said they might see her if they were very quiet (great way to calm the Christmas Eve hysteria) and look to see if they could see her moving the baubles and tinsel as she flew around. Then I would breathe as hard but silently as I could ( not blowing, just breathing) so that they  were not aware of what Iwas doing, and the breeze would  catch the tinsel and make it shimmer. They were enthralled, and it worked every time.

It's lovely to unpack the boxes of decorations each year and find old friends.

This cheap tatty little teddy in a bag is my son's personal favourite. His Gran bought it for him when he was just a toddler and it has to have a special place every year. It doesn't have anything to hang it with so he makes sure it is tucked safely on a flat branch, and there has to be a fairy light close by to keep the teddy company. My son is 28 now of course, but when he came home this year I caught him making sure that teddy was in a good position and the fairy light was there to light him. Bless.

This is one of my favourites. It's a cross stitch picture which came from an old Prima magazine pattern and it was painstakingly stitched entirely by Laura when she was only seven years old. The only concession I made for her age was that I gave her Binca fabric to work it on, which is easier as the weave is bigger. She loved doing it and she made a better job than a lot of grown ups would have done ( Kirstie Allsop included!).

I hang it by the fire every year.

And to create new memories, I wanted to add a special ornament this year as a minding for baby Ewan, who's First Christmas it is of course.

So here he is - found in a local shop - made of painted wood and just the very thing I had in mind. In this picture he looks huge but it's just the camera angle. He's not actually four feet tall, but sits on the mantlepiece like this

next to one of my real Christmas bargains this year - a red metal lantern, one of three I picked up in my local Sainsbury's reduced from £3.50 each to 35p! Now that's a bargain I couldn't pass.

Just thought I'd share my son (the 28 year old's) present from his big sister. A pair of fetching knitted slipper sock things. And no, she didn't make them herself. What's more he likes them!

So that was it for 2011. It's time to get back to normal as the orders waiting to be sent out are beginning to take over the living room again. Quite a few have come in in the past week and encouragingly half of them are brand new customers so the holidays are well and truly over. Back on the diet tomorrow too :o(