These are a few of my favorite things...

...my tabletop tinsel tree.

 

I scored this gem at the local "junque" emporium for a whopping $5.

It was love at first sight.

 

 

Last year I picked up this book.The author takes you through the decades describing what were popular images, colors, products, crafts, etc during each decade. In the book I discovered this tree was from the 1950's era. After showing the tree to my Mom, she gifted me these three hard plastic ornaments from her own stash of goodies.

 

 

 

Last year I acquired the snowman in the cage from another "junque" emporium.

 

The skiing Santa came from my mom, the snowshoe Santa from my mother in law.

 

My mother in law, Janet, would gift us beautiful glass ornaments every Christmas. She loved and cherished her beautiful ornaments. Janet's neighbor and friend would pick out and purchase the ornaments in small quantity, during her yearly trip to New York City. When the neighbor returned, she would invite her friends over to purchase the beautiful ornaments. Janet looked forward to this annual event. 

 

 

Janet passed away very suddenly over 13 years ago. Every Christmas I lovingly unwrap and carefully hang all of the ornaments she had given us over the years. 

 My husband's favorite color is purple and he played the saxophone in high school.

These are just a few from the collection.

 

This ornament is so awesome. One side is the sun (above), one side is the moon (below). I bought a special motorized hanger that rotates the ornament round and round.

 

Well, it had to happen eventually. I dropped the ornament shown below, while packing away Christmas, last year. I felt as shattered as the ornament, even though it was never one of my favorites. One less keepsake, one less memory, I felt like she slipped a little farther from my life.

 

 

As I assessed the damage, I realized only one side was damaged. I could "fix" this! I don't mean "fix" as in as good as new, but "fix" as in alter and therefore keep the memory alive.

 

 

 

Notice the mini tinsel peeking out from the edges?

Are you ready for the big reveal? Are you? Are you? Huh? huh?

 

 

 

The shiny glass interior of the ornament makes this very difficult to photograph. Here's what I did: I attached mini silver tinsel all around the sharp edge. A little downy cotton for the snow, a bleached out bottle brush tree and two miniature deer.

 



 

The vignette is very "quiet", much like the original side of the ornament. It's almost as if the deer are in the nearby church woods, watching the lights, listening to the people sing during Christmas Eve services.

I love that it is now like a little secret to be discovered by those who admire our tree.

 

Also, I have carried on gifting our own children with glass ornaments. I usually try to match up whatever they are currently into... like pizza...

 

 ...or cute little dogs...

 

 ...or UFO's to commemorate the year we watched nightly episodes from the X-Files. All nine seasons worth plus the two movies. Nothing says Christmas quite like UFO ornaments on your Christmas tree.

 

Have rockin' yule, earthlings!