Holidailies

12-22 -
Show us your favorite holiday decorations.

I don't usually do photo posts, but I did take a few pictures for this one. Sparky refused to let me take his picture in spite of sitting on the couch next to me wearing a Santa hat. So aside from that....here are four things that mean Christmas to me:

Santa, as painted on porcelain-ware about 40 years ago by my sister Ellen.

"The Beginning of the Birds"--a gift received from a former coworker of Beast over 25 years ago. It's about the size of my fist and made of china.

As far as Beast is concerned, Christmas can't happen unless this candle is burning as we open our presents. It's a German tradition, and this is a German Christmas candle which has burned for about an hour every year for the past 27 Christmases, a gift from FIL and MIL for Beast's and my first Christmas together.

Our crèche. The "stable" is from another set, but I painted all the porcelain-ware figures in 1994.
No Jesus yet--he will arrive overnight on Christmas Eve.

We only put up about half the decorations and ornaments this year. We could probably start a shop with all the stuff still packed up... sigh