P and I braved the arctic temperatures in the loft and dug out the Christmas decorations, so yesterday afternoon I spent a very pleasant hour or so decorating the tree.
This is the 12th Christmas that we've used this little artificial tree. It's the one I bought one warm and sunny May afternoon at a scout jumble sale in Nottingham for £1. I got some very odd looks carrying it back along a very busy main road, but every Christmas it comes out and, with a few tweaks of the branches, looks as good as new. Every single bauble on the tree is vintage, glass, and bought for pennies at a car boot, jumble sale or charity shop. The tinsel is also probably vintage by now as goodness knows how many years I've had it. It does tend to shed a bit and I know I'll still be picking odd bits of tinsel out of the carpet in midsummer!! Instead of the traditional English fairy on the top of the tree we have a glass 'sptiz' which is more a German tradition (P is a German-speaking Swiss), although it was bought in this country. This year, for probably the first time ever, I've managed to get it to stand upright, it usually leans at a some odd drunken angle. The lovely little fairy lights were bought new last year from Woolworths - they were some incredibly silly price like £2.99 for 200 lights.
I also got extra carried away this year and took down the usual ornaments from the mantlepiece so that I could have plenty of room for my Christmas bits and bobs.
The wooden Santa and two wooden trees were from a charity shop in Bristol years ago, and the nice little wooden reindeer was found in Oxfam in Billericay just after Christmas last year, so it's a first-time outing for him. In the background is one of my little Matryoshka dolls.
On the other side are two felted reindeer from Cath Kidston, I bought those in London last year as they were probably the cheapest items in the shop, the reindeer tea-light holder which I got in a charity shop last month, and another of my dolls.
I never put up the Christmas decorations when I don't think of the Christmas many many years ago when I was a child and we had a sweet little silver tinsel tree which stood in a red wooden bucket that you had to fill with sand to make it stable. This tree was always well decorated with glass baubles (I don't think there were any other kinds in the 1960s) and stood with pride right on top of the telly. We had an enormous tabby cat called Paddy who just would not leave the baubles alone. One Christmas Eve there was a tremendous crash from the living room and we all rushed in to find Paddy had swiped the tree extra hard, knocking it over, and spilling sand right down the back of the telly. I thought my Dad was going to have a fit - he spent hours blowing sand out of the back of the TV and swearing loudly at the cat. Ah, happy Christmas memories.
Don't vintage decorations look so pretty, I love the thought of all the previous Christmases they've been used and can't wait to add to my collection next year. Silver tinsel trees....yep we had one too, funny how they become "naff" but now they're sought after!
Gill x
Posted by: Gill | 12/18/2007 at 08:01 AM
Your tree looks beautiful! I love the german Sptiz decoration at the top - reminds me of Christmas's past spent in Germany! I have a few vintage ornaments on my tree that belonged to my parents, they go on the tree on Christmas Eve in memory of my parents and the lovely Christmas's we all spent together.
Posted by: Heather | 12/18/2007 at 10:46 AM