Oh Christmas Tree

I had originally thought to title this post “Oh Tannenbaum.” But my iPad wanted to correct “Tannenbaum” to “tanned alum,” (Is that even a thing? And if not, why is it a go-to phrase for autocorrect?) so I called an audible.

Our tree is up, and I always enjoy the trip down memory lane as we get out the ornaments to hang. There are so many that some stay in the box every year, but there are some that, for one reason or another, always go up.

For many years, shortly after we started having kids, I was a member of a women’s “circle” at church (it’s a Lutheran thing). This type of group is no longer my thing, but at the time it was a wonderful support for a young mom and something I looked forward to every month. Our tradition in December was to bring a Christmas ornament for an exchange; we sat in a circle, read aloud “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and passed the gifts to the right every time the word “the” appeared in the reading. One year I ended up with what had to be the world’s ugliest, tackiest angel – I had to work pretty hard to come up with an appreciative comment, and I think all I could think of was “It’s wings are puffy!” Truly, it was hideous. The appropriately ironic end to that ornament was that I gave it to the Federation of the Blind for their charity shop – honestly, only the blind could have enjoyed it.

But some of the ornaments from other years are yearly standards on our tree even today:

And then there’s the garland I made from twine,, buttons, and spools during the time when a couple of friends and I got together regularly for what we called “UFO” (UnFinished Objects) nights:

We always use a few of these guys from the year I went nuts with felt, buttons, fabric scraps, and embroidery floss. I must have made 50 of these, and have subsequently given some away as gifts.

I enjoy nothing more during the month of December than sitting downstairs with some good Christmas music or a holiday movie, a craft project, and some delicious Christmas-y aromatherapy (this year in the form of wax cubes dubbed “Frazier Fir.”)

Hope you’re enjoying your favorite holiday traditions, too!

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