General Chat

What are your favourites? Or oldest, cheapest, or 'clever makes' that are just a little bit different?

Having spent 3 hours hunting for the lights, which used to be in a particular box...which I remembered after the 3 hours, had been pinched for posting something earlier in the year ... I am trying to regain some enthusiasm ;-)

I'm very fond of the little bells on red ribbons on my tree that came from round the necks of Lindt chocolate Father Christmases :-)

I spent some time in Germany and I have collected a whole variety of mostly wooden decorations.
I like bringing them out as they bring back happy memories :-D

I have a couple of wooden ones Von, sent from America years ago :-)

The photo for my avatar is the oldest decoration I have from when I was a child, so is special to me :-)

Well last weekend I put up the tree.managed to find the lights quite easily. I plugged them in and noticed one wasn't working so I gave it a little twist and........whoosh a shock went up my arm to my elbow. Boy did it hurt. my daughter said my face went white!

After I got over the shock, I replugged them in to find..yep I fused the lot..some bright spark I am.

So decided to decorate without lights and with just 2 colours as I feel less is more. So this year its purple and silver. I still hang handmade decorations the kids did years ago as it brings back happy memories.

Florence
in the Hebrides

Ps we had a power cut today for several hours but it wasn't anything to do with me....lol :-) :-)

That was nasty for you Florence :-0 It really is horrible when that happens.

Having finally found our lights they didn't work, but I changed the fuse, so (touch wood) they seem ok now.

Lucky it was only a slight shock Florence. Best unplug them first next time.

The oldest decoration on our tree is a small fairy, she is 57 years old our first top of the tree fairy, she is now deputy fairy as she got quite scruffy. One of my favourites is a little pink glass horse bought in America. Most of our ornaments are not that old, I got rid of a lot a couple of years ago when we had too many but I can’t resist some of the newer ones. Our colours this year are red and purple and clear glass. Crystals.

Yes silly me, should have turned off the plug first.
Wow Ann 57 years old, ahhh bet shes lovely though and treasured.

I have a little Angel on the top of mine but because the top bit was a little bent, the Angel was leaning to one side. My daughter was over last weekend and said"mum, I think angel has been at the merlot". I laughed and then straightened her up...cant have that I said...hehe

Florence
in the hebrides :-D :-D :-D

Nyx...absolutely love your red decoration... :-) :-)
Florence
in the hebrides

I haven't put any decorations up yet, but the other day my daughter asked where the dog's b*ll*cks were :-S
This is actually a plain wooden, larger than life pair of cherries, with a wooden leaf.
But daughter's description is just about right! :-S :-S :-S

They can be scented, to invoke an aura of Christmas.
They also have tooth marks in them, 'created' years ago by a dog belonging to an ex boyfriend of said daughter!!

I also have two huge, tacky, golden coloured balls, that hang either side of the fireplace - these are known as 'Pat Butcher's earrings'.

Much as I'm not too keen on these things - Christmas wouldn't be the same without them :-D :-D

My favourite decoration is a wee wooden, rocking horse and about 40yrs old
As my daughters domineer Christmas, all my old favourites have to stay in the box.

Orders...
Main tree in dining room must match the Christmas table theme
Baubles & String Beads. Gold only. Bright white lights

The other tree is my youngest daughter's domain.
It's one of those "real" looking trees.( Not a Christmas Tree) with bare branches, a wee bit of snow and bright white lights.
Clear glass baubles only!

It's quite nice but, it looks really cold.
I call it the Narnia Tree

My favorites are definitely the ones my children have made over the years :-D

Mines an artificial Robin, inherited from my mother but not particularly old. It used to be game for our children to try and spot it amongst everything else. Even though they are now adult, it’s still a traditional game before dinner is served.

Baubles come and eventually go. The ones shown the door fairly quickly were a couple of clear purple ones containing feathers. Although we have sufficient stock to create different colour themes, purple wasn’t one of them! OH was packed off to see if he could find anything to suit. He came back with a monstrosity of a ceiling hanging which would have fitted better in a Public Venue. He thought I laughed at it. No, I cried! We’re still arguing whether it was a rocket or a palm tree. :-0 :-D

Since having our children, we have lived in many locations in England and Europe and like Von we have some little German tree ornaments, which are wood painted bright colours, skier, toboggan, parcel stack and elf are some I recall.

Also, when we went on holiday, we bought tree decorations and now these help to recall special times.There is a tiny ceramic Christmas tree from Ireland, natural straw angels from Germany, crystal snowflake from Prague and shell star from New Zealand.
Also treasured are delicate glass ornaments which Mum had carefully kept. These have now been shared between her grandchildren and we love to spot them, when we visit my son's house.I particularly like one that has bands of plain red with silver 'frosting'

Nyx
Your red tree decoration brings to mind childhood Christmas. We had one just like that in yellow.

We have junked all the trad Christmas lights this year and gone over to LED. They use a fraction of the power, much safer too. Prices have fallen a whole lot so LED decorative lighting is very affordable - an average Christmas tree can be decked out from £ 10 in multicolor.

I use an artificial tree in London, which even snr cat could not tell from the real thing 'cos he used to try and eat it. In Normandie we will have the real thing. Some of our glass baubles are over a hundred years old I don't much like the modern ones.

OH insists that the main Christmas Eve get together is by candlelight. It scares me but so far nothing has caught fire. She does allow normal lighting in the kitchen.

bonnes fêtes

I haven't got anything particularly old, all Mum's stuff is long gone, lost in various moves and clear-outs. I love the ones I bought in USA (normally have a red/white/blue theme) and a velvety figure of Nelson I bought in London in 200th Trafalgar anniversary year.

A silver glass heart which when at infant school and the class tree was taken down teacher allowed us to choose one decoration,I had droodled over this heart for weeks and made mad a greedy selfish dash to nab it,its a little bare of silver in places but still is hung on the tree,also our home tree fairy with real hair? which mum had had since married,she has been re-dressed over the 60++years and looks forward to having the top stuck up her dress every year.

.I have one old box with faded glass baubles with some frosted scene on, in their original box @ 3 shillings ! that are too tatty to display but again childhood ones but cant throw them out.some I put up are from childhood such as the tissue paper bells,faded but hold such memories.


I even still make up a few glue paperchains just as mum had us do. :-D.