Oodles and oodles

A last minute Christmas Eve house tour

I was trying to remember why I don't post more the week leading up to Christmas because it's kind of the high point of my year, and then I remembered why: BECAUSE IT'S THE WEEK LEADING UP TO CHRISTMAS. Today, however, the sun came out (miracle #1) and I had a few spare minutes (miracle #2, but one that resulted only from my desire to get out of the kitchen, so maybe not a miracle). Anyway, here is a last minute tour of my Christmas decor.

A Putz scene with oversized churches, made more festive ...

when the church in back lights up. Nothing makes a Christmas Eve more festive than a blinking light-up church.

Especially when it competes with the blinking light-up tree across the room.

The Village of Putz is experiencing some suburban sprawl. I don't think I added many houses, but I put them all in one spot this year.

Some new residents. My friend Martha and I had been discussing our mutual love of crepe-paper figures, and she told me she was sending some tiny ones she recently acquired. When she told me I would be surprised at how tiny they are, I have to admit that I scoffed. How tiny could they be?

Oh my goodness. They are THAT small.

Part of the Santa collection. There's a smaller shelf of Santas, but I forgot to take a photo of it, apparently. (I know, I know. Christmas is ruined.)

I'm going to step into the kitchen only for one minute so you can see the Santas out there.

Brownie cupcakes for Santa's snack plate tonight.

This year's favorite cookie, ready to go in the oven - chocolate shortbread cut out with a vintage pine tree cookie cutter.

Always the last decoration to go up, the manger scene, with its many mismatched animals and figures.

It's finally here, my favorite day of the year. I hope you have a magical Christmas!


 

  

 

Welcome to the third annual AOVCOA&S Awards!

Last year's winner of the "Best Indent" award, accompanied by the 2009 winner

 If this year's awards ceremonies seems a little disjointed and poorly organized, I apologize. Up until very recently, I thought I had found the perfect people to present the awards - engaging, eager for publicity, apparently with nothing else to do.

I'm talking, of course, about contenders for the Republican presidential nomination.

I had invited several former and current front-runners for the nomination to present the awards, but it was clear from the first rehearsal that the ceremony would be a disaster. Mitt Romney would come out and give an award, and five minutes later he'd want to go back on stage and say he'd changed his mind. Newt Gingrich showed promise - he's so elfin-looking! - but then he wanted a seven-figure "consulting fee." Rick Perry would say there were three nominees for an award, but then ... well, I think you know what happened. Oops.

It didn't take me long to realize how unsuitable they were for the job. Any job. So when I just happened to mention that very few Iowa caucus-goers pay attention to the awards, they vanished! Just like that! Poof! Sorry to send them your way, Iowans, but the preservation of the Academy comes first. Let's bring on our first award-winner!

Outstanding Performance by an Unsilvered Ornament

Well, this is a surprise: this small red unsilvered ball with its stenciled church scene is so similar to the 2009 winner that some untrained observers thought they were one in the same. The judges were in agreement: It's not just hard to beat a snowy scene with a church steeple and a full moon. It's impossible.

Best Figural Ornament


It's looking like another big year for red. This glass clip-on mushroom looks as if it just popped up from the forest floor. A forest floor covered with glass bead garland and silver tinsel, perhaps, but a forest floor nonetheless.

(The judges are murmuring. They're talking about something they've just noticed. It looks - I can't be sure - it looks as if they might have changed their mind about one of the award winners.)

Best Santa

So that's what they were talking about! The judges had selected a different Santa as this year's award-winner, but then they noticed this one off to the side of the mushroom: an old fashioned Santa molded into a delicate glass oval. He is a beauty! (But I think the milkglass Santa is weeping. The milkglass Santa was sure this year was his year. Sorry, milkglass Santa.)
 
Best Indent


From the judge's notes: We hardly can overlook the fact that this ornament is stunning not only from the front ...

but from the back! Bravo, handpainted indents from Poland!

Best deer

Last year, blog reader Jennifer, in Maine, asked if I could choose a Best Deer ornament. I liked the idea a lot, but I didn't think I had any deer. I had forgotten this one, and it's a beauty! The judges, who have always been partial to panorama balls, were especially taken with the sparkly white glitter and the snowy night it evokes.

Best Bird

 
The Academy loves these birds. The Academy found several of these birds this year, and that made the Academy really happy. They come in different colors (there also are red and yellow birds on the tree, but in hard-to-photograph spots), and they're handy because they clip onto the top of a branch - just the thing to fill in awkward bare spots. Well done, little bird!

Best New Ornament of the Year

Is it a card? Is it an ornament? Is it a calendar? It's all three, and it's got one of the cutest puppies in the world popping through a horseshoe. And if that weren't enough to love: there's a complete calendar for 1936 attached, and 1936 is the year the Academy's founder's mother was born. No 1936, no Academy of Vintage Christmas Ornaments Arts and Sciences. This isn't just a cute ornament, according to the judges. If not for this ornament, or at least the year it represents, none of us would be here tonight.

Kind of gives you the shivers, doesn't it? It's like being present when history is made.

Well, we've come to our final award of the evening.

Best Christmas Ornament Reminiscent of a Joni Mitchell Song


A pair of doll-sized leather ice skates. Because your favorite album ever is "Blue." Because you spent the better part of your prime dating years pining after someone who was completely unavailable. Because you majored in English. Because secretly you're kind of happy when it's cold and drizzly outside. Because you find it a little annoying that the whole world loves Jane Austen now, and you loved her before they started turning all of her novels into movies.

Because your favorite Christmas song isn't a Christmas song at all but a break-up song:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace ...

I wish I had a river
I could skate away on ...

And because you didn't even have to go to a lyrics web site to look up the words to Joni Mitchell's haunting "River" because they are Etched Into Your Soul.

OK, guilty on all counts. Love that song. Love those skates.

And even if that song doesn't exactly say "Merry Christmas," I will. Merry Christmas!
 

A few last-minute details

It's starting to feel like Christmas is almost here. The eldest child has been retrieved from college. Enough cookies have been baked to have something credible to offer a guest. We enjoyed one of our favorite traditions Saturday night, dinner with our dearest of friends.

The tree is decorated, as it has been for some time, but some packages have been wrapped and placed near it. It won't feel like Christmas is really here, though, until something else happens. Yes, you know what it is.

The third annual Academy of Vintage Christmas Ornament Arts and Sciences Award Ceremony!

There are only a few details to announce before the event, which begins at 8 p.m. (EST) Monday, Dec. 19. As always, admission is free, black tie is optional, and parking should pose no problem. The Academy is hoping for a flawless, controversy-free event this year, last year's event being marred just a tiny bit by the Academy's admission that it does not particularly care for knee-hugger elf ornaments.

Not to dwell too much on last year, but you may remember that the Academy opened up the nominating process and invited people to suggest various awards.  The Academy will not make that mistake again! Instead, the Academy hopes to build upon last year's event. It will, for example, honor the category "Best Alternative-Lifestyle Oriented Elf with Bendy Knees" by permanently retiring it.

But the Academy may include certain other categories suggested by others last year. And new categories may be added. The Academy intends to do whatever it pleases this year. Including - and you've probably heard the rumors on the blogosphere already - adding a category for "Best Christmas Ornament Inspired by a Joni Mitchell Song."

On behalf of the 300-and-some ornaments in contention for an award, let me close by simply saying: See you there.

 

A few little trees

I knew if I looked hard enough I would find a place for a few little Christmas trees, and I did: in the corner of the landing of the stairs. The first concern was security, since my multiple pets sometimes dash up and down the stairs, sometimes in pursuit of one another. So the tree with the fragile ornaments is w-a-y in back, secured with a little nearly invisible fishing line to prevent tipping, and the trees in front are pretty much indestructible, as the elf tree proved when the dog sent it tumbling.

I made a concerted effort to acquire more pinecone elves a few years ago. They're not the easiest things to hang on a tree, but if you attach them individually with white pipe cleaners that blend in with their chenille-trimmed bodies while watching football, you don't feel quite as useless as you do if you are only watching football. (Discussion question: Is it even possible to watch television and not do something else? For example, right now, and I'm not proud of this, "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" is on in the background. I feel completely capable of writing and keeping up with so-called plot at the same time.)

The one and only pinecone girl on the tree.

I've sold quite a few pinecone ornaments over the years.

I wish I had every single one of them back. I'd like more of this tinsel, too, which is old, old lametta tinsel, made with real metal that ages over time.

Finally, a few little trees that hadn't found a home elsewhere. With the trees on the stairs, I can see them almost as soon as I get up in the morning, and I see them about a hundred times a day going up and down the stairs. A little Christmas all the time. I like that.

 

 

Announcements from the elf

The elf has a few things he'd like to say.

1. That even if there are a lot of snowmen in this house right now, there's a pretty fair number of elves, too.

2. All of them are on a tree that is part of a little Christmas tree display on the landing of the stairs.

3. There are photos of the little Christmas tree display coming later today. (Perhaps much later today. It depends how the to-do list goes.)

4. No elves were injured yesterday when the dog decided to stand on the landing  and wag his large tail very vigorously, causing the elf tree to tumble partially down the stairs. They're calling it a Christmas miracle. Expect an announcement soon regarding movie rights.

5. Speaking of announcements, the winner of the Blue Christmas/vintage Christmas decorations giveaway is Sharrie! Congratulations!

Thanks to all of you who left a comment. It was great to hear from all of you, especially those of you who were leaving a comment for the first time.

 

99 percent

It started with this snowman.

A few more appeared.

Sometimes they came by themselves.

Sometimes they came in groups.

They pledged to stay out no matter what the weather. Even sunshine.

They huddled together in makeshift encampments.

Just when you thought there was room for no more ...

another one would appear.

There's no other explanation for it. The movement has spread to snowmen. They're calling it "Occupy the Hoosier."

(Don't forget to enter the giveaway over here!)

For you, a little gift. Or two.

Since I've already admitted to being a Christmas ornament snob, I might as well come clean on a few other topics. I'm also a Christmas music snob, a Christmas movie snob, and a Christmas book snob. I don't like just anything. I need to be convinced that something is worth my attention.

Which is why I am happy to recommend to you the novella* "Blue Christmas," by our friend Mary Kay Andrews, because it meets several of my key criteria:

1. It is not heartwarming. I hate heartwarming. Which is not to say it's mean-spirited, or depressing. It's delightful. Happy but not sugary. I hate sugary, too.

2. It has interesting characters, humor, intrigue, romance and a window-decorating contest.

3. Oh, and it also has recipes at the end. That's always a good thing, especially when the recipes have funny introductions. I'm not going to disclose too much, but there's a punch recipe that hints at scandal.

4. There's a Christmas music playlist that even a Christmas music snob can endorse.

5. This is the most important thing, at least to me: great descriptions of vintage Christmas objects. Really great. Like "I've been at that same auction" great. Like "I got exactly the same box lot for seven dollars" great. Like even if you were someone who didn't like a good plot and charming characters you would keep reading in hopes of another mention of Shiny Brites - that kind of great.

(*novella, for those of you who may not have majored in English, is a short novel, otherwise known as "a book I may actually finish.")

Anyway, here's the good part: I have a copy of "Blue Christmas" to give away. Here's the other good part: To that book I will add a small but tasteful box of vintage Christmas decorations that would make Weezie Foley (the main character in the book) squeal with delight. And all you have to do is write a 500-word essay in which you ... no, no, no. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post sometime before Thursday morning. One winner will be chosen at random. And then I'll let you know who that is.

We've picked a winner ... thanks to everyone who left a comment!
 

A little treat

Have you seen this?
It's a tiny online version of Home Companion!
(Am I the only person who kept every issue of that magazine?)
(And gets the December issues out every year?)

 

 

You can't judge a Christmas ornament by its hideous appearance

This ornament has been on my family's Christmas tree as long as I've been alive, and then some. It's older than my mother, older than my sainted late grandmother. This is Happy Hooligan, and every year he got a very special place on the back of the  Christmas tree - tradition required us to hang him up, but nobody much wanted to see him. He's ghastly, and I don't think he looked much better when he was brand new, back around 1900.

According to family lore, Happy Hooligan belonged to my great-grandfather. I remember Pap-pap a little, and he was a kind, delightful man with a shining bald head, round wire-framed glasses, a ready smile and terrible taste in Christmas ornaments. If you're going to have a fault, though, better that you have terrible taste in holiday ornaments than to be mean-spirited.

As my brother and I grew older, we fought over Happy Hooligan - not over whose turn it was to hang him on the tree, but who would eventually inherit him. I insisted that my brother should have him, and of course, my brother thought he should come to me.

And then we found out what Happy Hooligan was worth.

As Christmas ornaments go, quite a lot. According to one of my guidebooks, between $450 and $600. I saw one on eBay go for around $500 a few years ago. I don't know what he might be worth now, but it doesn't really matter, since we're not going to sell him. He's part of the family. He's the part of the family that my parents lock in the attic the better part of the year, but he's family nonetheless.

Happy Hooligan (who was a hobo in a comic strip that began in 1900) is in a category of rare glass Christmas ornaments known as extended leg figures. They were expensive even in their day, so I've read, and were purchased only one or two a year.

So I've learned to love Happy Hooligan, or at least appreciate the fact that he's special. And who knows? Maybe that early exposure to old Christmas ornaments planted the seed of an interest that would become close to an obsession.

Still, you've got to admit: that is one unattractive Christmas ornament.

And my brother still says that when the time comes, Happy Hooligan is coming to live with me. 

500

Thanks, Becky - your purchase was my 500th sale on Etsy, so free shipping for you!