Taking down the Christmas tree

A zoom on the tree before I started to take it all away.

On the very top, Louis' happy Christmas star.

A wooly elf on his reindeer, come from afar!!

" I fly through the air and toot on my horn.

To wake you all each Christmas morn."

Bursting and overflowing with Christmas cheer,

is this little candy house, of 33 years!!

Little felt unicorns, an example of Mom's yearly handycraft.

Angels

Angels, and more angels

Raggady Anne is missing an eye!! Oh, my!!

In a bundle on the table

Waiting to be stored away till next year.."Have a coke," Santa says!!

I took down our Christms tree today..we always leave it up till the Epiphanie, which is the six of January...I'm a few days late, but that's ok...

Taking down the Christmas tree is a rituel for me, much more important than putting it up. It's a nostolgic , almost sacred task..and trip!!! As I lift each ornament from the tree's bough and place it on the table to be stored till next year, my mind and memory travel back over the years to where and when certain of our decorations were acquired. Many of the decorations I use are those my Mom hand made for the kids over the years. She made them for all her grandkids, for many years. She'd send Tammy and Noll's in a bubbly protective evelope. I don't have all of them any more, the kids have some, but I still have enough to relive that wonderful sensation of receiving the padded envelope and discovering what Grandma had made "for this year's tree"...then we have the paper ornaments sent to the kids as Christmas cards...the candy house, Noll received when he was one..it's been tapped back together numerous times, and the lovely angel mouse of Tammy's ..I put them on the tree every year.

The silver paper star, complete with eyes and nose, that our nephew Louis made in 1999....he was only four!!! It was on the top of the tree this year..sometimes I use the angel he also made, but this year I put on the star, the angel was with the nativity scene.

I've bells and stars, snowmen, snow flakes, and stockings ..all hand made by someone dear....and I've a whole host of angels, too many for one tree, so they have to take yearly turns.. My mother, bless her heart, was always buying me angels for the tree, and now Linda has taken up the tradition!! They're all so pretty!!

I can't begin to go into details for all the decorations I have, or to tell you even briefly, from whom they are and the souvenir they evoke.
And if I did,I fear you'd never come back to look at my blog again!!!!
I don't know if any of you are sentimental about taking down the tree or not...

But I feel it as an interesting, unique story to tell, and maybe one day I'll write it all down

For today, just let me say, I've once again taken the path called "taking down the Christmas tree," and as always it was a beautiful walk!!

Here a few pictures to illustrate!

Hope your New Year is getting off to a great start.