Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Christmas 2008




Santa Claus has been bringing each of my daughters one ornament a year since they were born. We tag them with the name and year when we put them away. Some day, when the kids establish their own homes, they will take them away. Then, I guess, we will have to buy all new ornaments for ourselves or have a naked tree. And yes, we are the last people on earth who still hang tinsel of the "rain" variety on our tree.
The kids have seemed to enjoy this tradition and Santa has an uncanny way of matching their ornaments to their interests

Becca, for example, went through quite a peacock phase which culminated in her getting a peacock tatoo .
The fairy ornament ( they each got one ) came the year they were into all things magical and pink.
I love this one -- Venice, complete with gondola.
And of course, Lizzie has been obsessed with penguins ever since she wandered into my room where I was napping and asked "Mom, can we get a penguin?" I think she was about 9 years old at the time.
Then there is, of course, The ceremonial Hanging Of The Penguin . A very bizarre and Arcane Yuletide ritual that - well actually we started it this year. This activity terrified our dogs.


The daughters came home from their schoolin' to spend Christmas with us ( because who would want to miss the Hanging Of The Penguin?) and it was great having them around. It always is. Becca came and hung out being decorative and wonderful and brought us some paintings that she made in art school.


This is not a talent she gets from me.



Lizzie also hung out being decorative and wonderful.


She is into being crafty and had taken the Handmade Challenge. This meant that all her Christmas presents either had to be handmade or bought from fair trade stores. She made me and David matching caps to wear to Obama's Inauguration:

And she made Becca a Jellyfish because Becca likes Jellyfish.

This is not a talent she gets from me.

The handmade challenge, however, did not stop her boyfriend
From buying her one of these -
Becca and I think that she should not accept this, due to the afore mentioned Handmade Challenge and give it to us. I don't see that happening any time soon.

It was a pretty fine Christmas all the way around. We had our usual Christmas Eve open house- about twenty folks were there- down from a high of over forty a few years back- I think this year's may have been our last. I am sad that our tree has been set out on the sidewalk to be ground up into mulch and that all the fun stuff has been put away. I am also grateful that we don't have to do this for another year.

5 comments:

cheatymoon said...

You guys are all too pretty and creative and cool to even be a little bit related to me. Ack.

Somewhere I had boxed up a bunch-o-penguins for Liz when she was little and then I moved somewhere (or my husband at the time kicked me out of my house - not sure which), and quite possibly I will find the box when D and I buy our retirement double-wide. By then I will be gifting the penguins to one of your grandchildren.

crone51 said...

awwww.... That's sweet.

Don't include me in the creative cool and pretty thing....These things seem to be carried by recessive genes. We just hang the occasional penguin.

And you are incredibly pretty cool and creative your own self. So there.

Reya Mellicker said...

You were at Woodstock? Cool!! Will you write about it at some point?

Will you be in DC proper for the inauguration? Would be fun to meet. Email me if you want to try what could be impossible. We could try, though - ? reyasdottir@verizon.net

Reya Mellicker said...

word verification - "stoneouts"

crone51 said...

I was at Woodstock -well-sorta...I have written about it on this very bloggy thing that you see before you... a pretty early post..