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Sunday, December 27, 2009

It's still Christmas....



Growing up I never decorated a Christmas tree. Both my parents are of German lineage (my Dad's parents were both immigrants) so we have strong German traditions in our family. On Saint Nicholas Night (the 5th of December) we hang our stockings and open whatever St Nick thought we deserved the next morning....On Christmas Eve morning my folks would hang a curtain blocking the room, where the tree was to go, from view. My brothers and I spent the day concentrating on not peeking while St Nick and my Mom and Dad decorated the tree. By evening we would eat a quick meal and head to church for Christmas Eve services. We would do our best (!) not to fidget TOO much....As soon as we got home we kids changed into our pjs and waited patiently while the final touches were added to the "room behind the curtain." When the advent candles were lit and we heard the German church bells ringing on the record player the curtain would come down and the magic began!

I still believed in Santa Claus until my first Christmas as a married lady and he never showed up to help ME decorate the tree. Despite my late introduction to tree decorating I think I do ok...and probably that is why I enjoy it so much! Greg and I buy Christmas ornaments on our vacations as souvenirs, so our tree is a big scrapbook.


This year was just too busy. So instead of hauling out our boxes of Christmas stuff I decided to use only the ornaments I have bought as LibertyTown. Below are a few pictures.





Aline is Dan's right hand girl. She swears she's not an artist but she is magic in the garden. She plays with pressed/dried flowers and makes amazing cards. Mine is on our tree.
(You can see a ceramic snowflake in the background by Scarlett Pons. I confess to having several of these...meant for gifts. Oh well.)




Elizabeth Seaver is our Artist in Residence and she loves "anything bird!" Her collage birds this year were a real hit!







Neil Reed was LibertyTown's first Artist in Residence. Now his studio is down the hall and though he is a stay at home Dad still manages to produce fantastic sgraffito pots. The tree above is his from last year. (I have several in my windows year 'round!)



Remember "Shrinky Dinks?" The guitar above was a gift to my hubby last year made by Rob Landeck. The wooden ornament was made by my studio mates son on his lathe. He should sell these!


A tree of LibertyTown ornaments would not be complete without a birdhouse by Stephanie. She makes a different one every year.





Last but not least (I could take tons more pictures!) is a multi-media bird by the talented Elizabeth Woodford. Her work is available in our Emporium.





Couldnt resist a picture of our dog celebrating with her new stuffed soccer ball. She LOVES Christmas and just wants to open EVEYONES presents!

I hope everyone has had a fantastic holiday!

6 comments:

Gary's third pottery blog said...

oh, I loooove your dog!

The Heiferman said...

We didn't do one this year either. A friend brought over a little fake tree. We were pretty out of sorts with the broken hand and new addition to the family! We made it official today and sent in the "mandatory donation."
Kona is officially part of the household.

Elizabeth Seaver said...

Very fun to see all the ornaments from our favorite place! Thanks for putting mine on there.

See you soon, but maybe not until 2010!

The Heiferman said...

Congrats to the fam on the new job, BTW!

Elizabeth said...

Not sure how I missed this post!! I lvoe the story of yor childhood christmas's- what a neat tradition!!! I ahve a totally seperate tree for all of my ornaments form my art friends- next year I might have to get a bigger art tree!!!!!
Each one of your ornments is so specail and carries such great karma with it!!
hugs!
Elizabeth

Spinning Ninny said...

she's a cutie. :)