For as long as I can remember, some of these ornaments have been on the Christmas tree. It all began, I think, with the little decorations my cousin Anne (who is 9 years older than I am) would tie onto the outside of my presents. Here are some of the very oldest.

The glass snowman is so old I don’t remember getting him…Anne, do you recall t his one? The reindeer and angel, and the ancient, now one-eyed Santa and angels, were decorations from Anne.

Later, maybe in junior high or high school, I began buying ornaments for the family tree. When I was newly out of college, I began buying in pairs…one for my tree, one for my parents. Every year, no matter where in the world we have been, I have bought something for the tree (the hardest year was when we were in Islamic Gabon in Central Africa…but I did find one fairly pathetic little church ornament, so that we have!). For example, in La Paz, Bolivia, I bought this couple…little dolls; they sit on a branch every year.

When mom downsized after Daddy died, she sent me all the ornaments. I have long planned to give one of each to my sons.

This year, I took the boys with me to shop, and they each got to pick one. To my utter surprise, Joshua liked the cool beaded one that I had first picked out even more than the raccoon he first picked (I even asked him to make sure he liked it and wasn’t just being nice to me, but he said are you kidding, it’s way cool. Good taste that kid has! I’ll take all the credit for that ).

Eli is currently on a mouse kick, reading books about various mousies. He bought this one, but has since decided it is a hamster (the tail would support that idea); if you squish him, he “sings” various Christmas carols. May his batteries die soon.

And I bought a beaded one too…the last of its kind, and only $5…how can you resist cloth and beads for that price? Just to the left of it is a Russian church bell tower which I bought on my last trip overseas with the foreign service, to a consular conference in Moscow in February, 1997.

PS–thanks to DebR of Red Shoe Ramblings for telling me she does her captions and arrows in Photoshop. I can do that in Photoshop Elements, too, so I did! Thanks Deb!

Wednesday was the day for Eli’s second grade play, based on the book “The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.” Three of the teachers set the song to music, their music teacher played the score and taught the kids the songs, and they did fantastically well.

Eli was a jiffie, a penguin-ish creature in the book, so the “jiffie” kids wore black and white and carried feather dusters to clean the palace of the Whangdoodle.

It was sweet and fun.

OK….will add more to the text of this post tomorrow or whenever, but here it is….the new Christmas Tree Skirt….to replace the “just for a short while” tree skirt that I made 22 years ago….. I’ll take a picture of that horror (think pre-quilted poly-cotton of the early 80s….SHUDDER).

Here’s a picture of the edge…I fussy cut a holiday print for the squares and diamonds. I had two yards, but turns out I needed about 2 1/2 so some of the squares are sorta pieced, but it would be hard to tell…thanks to the wonders of fusible and clever cutting. Phew!

The red bits in the center, the spokes, are appliqued (you think I’m nuts to piece that much?)….the blocks had 1 inch strips sewn to them (with the bias edges on all the squares and diamonds that was fun…not!). Overall, from outermost point of a diamond to the other side is about 64 inches. At first I was afraid it was going to be waaaaayyyyy to huge for our tree, but just put it under and it’s perfect (will take a picture and post when we get the tree trimmed…we’re late…again….)…pokes out exactly the amount I wanted it to (we have an artificial tree….after all those years living abroad where you couldn’t buy a real tree to save your life, we got used to the artificial ones, and they are less expensive and don’t despoil the forest…don’t smell anywhere near as good either……sigh).

This past week has been insane beyond belief (more about which in another post), but one wonderful thing that did happen was meeting Elizabeth for lunch in Damariscotta, where we ate at the Grill next to Aboca Beads. Just to let you know how insane the week has been, the beads I purchased on Wednesday are still in my purse!

Anyway, Elizabeth is a fellow pirate (and you’ll just have to wonder about that one); yet another pirate and denizen of the blog ring (hint…she has red hair and always remembers to do Self-Portrait Tuesday, unlike yours truly—speaking of which, I bought White Christmas last week…once again I can indulge in an evening of hot tea and video nostalgia, but back to the point…) anyway, said denizen asked if we would take a photo of ourselves and not just Elizabeth’s beautiful hair. Well, I remembered this….eventually. And of course, we were both running late by the time I remembered and didn’t have time to find a waiter to take our picture, so here are our hands…. heh heh. Guess which belongs to whom (and that’s written that way because I couldn’t figure out in my addled agitation how to write whose is who’s? Or who’s is whose? Or whose is whose or who’s is who’s…… and English majors?).

Actually, I’m kinda hoping Elizabeth hates getting her picture taken as much as I do, so we can keep teasing you all…. Avast mateys….time to get the bairns in bed or they’ll walk the plank! Snarling mommy on the loose!

I had a mug, a lamented, broken years ago mug, known among the congnoscenti and my friends as the Bucking Funnies mug. I used to have it at work. It was so much fun to be meeting with someone and watch them come to a screeching halt, mid-sentence, as they realized exactly WHAT the bunnies were doing (hint: bunnies are famous for it).

A year, no more, ago, I mentioned this mug for some conversational reason on the Quiltart list, and someone said the mugs had been made by Taylor and Ng, and were still available, lo these 20+ years and more later! Heh heh….ordered four assorted mugs, including a replacement “Le Lapin” mug. The mugs themselves are a bit different…liked the original better, but these are still fun. If you look closely at the penguins, you’ll see they really do care for each other very much. Ahem! I’ll un-box (still stored, safely!) the Le Lapin mug and take pics of it, too, one of these days.

Really loved that look as comprehension dawned on folks’ faces….wicked, eh?