Down Comes the Tree and Decorations. 5th Jan 2010

12th Night My son Jason's snowman which he made in about 1975!

It's officially 12th night tomorrow (well, today but it's 1.20am on the 6th) so all the decorations have to come down. I spent some of yesterday and much of today taking them down, wrapping and packing them carefully away. I love my decorations and have built up my collection over the years. When I split with my 2nd husband it was heart wrenching to have to leave some of them behind.

I decided to photograph some of the special ones:

There are several old glass baubles like the one above - they belonged to my Mother and Father.

This peacock

and this little house. It's amazing that they've lasted so long but I do wrap them very carefully each year.


There used to be 2 of these birds and they had soft tails too. Sadly the head broke off one of them and then the body broke, as the clips have lost their grip. Luckily this one survived.

This faded gold plastic star used to hang just underneath the fairy on the tree. I think it was a free gift with something or other and it also belonged to my Mother and Father.


The rather tatty boot and Santa with his song sheet I bought when I was with my first husband, Ken. That would be about 1969 I would think. I remember thinking the Santa cost a lot of money at the time.

The Santa above used to hang on the tree and the one below either went in a flower arrangement or in the Christmas Cake!

My Grannie Georgina (on my Mum's side) had a brother called D'Arcy and he bought us some decorations - he seemed to have lots of money and had a chauffeur driven Bentley!

This was one of them

And these the remaining 2 of what I think was a set of 6. I love these.

Another of Mummy's was this strange fairy - it's lost the bauble from one arm.

And these 2 baubles, which are losing their colour.

But my favourite of my mother's is this bell. They had little money when first married and she made this one, plus several others that have long gone. The red wool on it is the original too.


This mask was bought for my by my friend Nikki. I worked with Nikki in the Nat West at Bakewell and she was a generous friend in all respects.

Kay, Jason and Ben - my children


The card above I have had since Kay was 2 - and it hangs on the tree every year - that's 40 years! It still looks good too. If you can read the inside it says 'TRINA' which is short for Katrina, K's full name.

K was (and is) always good at art and making things and she made these 2 decorations from paper. The pink one is an intricate cut out and you pull the bottom to reveal its shape - which is like a lantern. It amazed me and is also years old.

Now unlike their sister, my two boys were both pretty useless at art! Here is one of my most precious possession - Jason's snowman, made at school when he was about 5 years old. It used to have a small piece of carrot for a nose but that eventually went black and dropped off - but the currants remain!

Each year when I bring it out the husband groans!! (that's Jim and his predecessor)!! It's a fine work of art. I can't see their problem myself!

Ben was little better and he produced these 2 Christmas stockings at nursery school I think, so even they are some 20 years old:

If you can see, the one on the right had the hole and string in its toe!! As you can imagine, it didn't hang very well, so I put one in the top. lol.

Here is the snowman again, this photo taken in 2005, with 2 of Jason's other works of art. The Santa head (not too bad really) and the amazing one and a half legged reindeer! This never hung so I have to sit it on one of the branches and it invariably falls off!

So that's it for this year. I still have some baubles to wrap and put away tomorrow, plus the tree to box up and then all the boxes (5 large ones) can go away for another year.

Just to finish with, a few photos of our two lovebirds, Buster and Sandy having a love in on the mat:


Buster and Sandy head to head.
Tummy rub.

How cute are they?

I do hope everyone isn't snowed in - if you're in the UK you probably will be. Here it is just cold and icy, though we did have some snow today which has made another layer of ice on top of the rest! Bring on the global warming!