In an attempt to procrastinate the Christmas un-decorating for a little bit longer, I thought I'd update The Gypsy Wagon with some photos of the Christmas decor here in our SE Georgia casa. We decorated five trees this year which is neither the most nor the least trees that we've decorated in the past. We ran out of time before we ran out of decorations which says something about our lack of moderation.
This tree resided in the corner of the room that we lovingly call "the hamster cage" because the kids think that the sisal rug smells like the (fresh) wood shavings that line hamster cages. The Tex-Mex fiesta tree isn't a new addition to the family forest, but it's shown up in various iterations throughout the years. One year all of the decorations were affixed to a heavy lighted garland in the kitchen. Another year, it was a short squatty tree in yet another kitchen. This year I sprang for a new narrow pre-lighted tree at Joann Fabrics. It came with a sprinkling of multi-color lights and I added another string of larger multicolor lights to add more depth and gaudiness. The ornaments on this tree have been collected over the years and Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of my favorites and is always carefully wired to ensure that it will survive another year in the O'Neill household. I collect things all year long to add to this tree, and this year brought back several tin ornaments from El Tesoro in Austin. As John said, "nothing says Christmas like a skeleton sailor made of tin".
Most years we have a full size faux tree with all of the food ornaments tucked in a corner of the dining room. This year, the furniture arrangement wouldn't allow that- and that particular tree is ready for disposal so we went another route. Dead branches from the live oak tree became the food tree this year, and while it was a little unconventional I loved it.
Yes, I know that there's too much grain in that photo, but I'm having camera issues with two different Nikons right now, and the IPhone is the camera that works right now. The Chinese take-out box was the new addition this year to the food tree. And you can see the taco above and too the left of the take-out box. Doesn't everyone have a blown glass taco Christmas ornament?
The Army/Navy tree was placed out in the screen-in porch for the Army/Navy party and it stayed there throughout the season. The silver tinsel tree came from a serendipitous shopping expedition in Teena Flanner's attic before she moved away from Norfolk. Joann and I spent an hour and a half digging through all of her ornaments, paper-mache snowmen, Santas and angels. The tree was one that she had used for display in her shop. I love getting it out every year and remembering how much fun Joann and I had sitting in the doorway of her attic laughing and shopping.
One of my favorite Navy ornaments is the one that Lara made for me in 2001 when we were stationed at the Naval Academy the first time. All those french knots are love manifested in embroidery floss.
The first of two real trees this year was the Texas tree out on the porch. We had hosted a Texas barbecue several weeks prior and left the bunting, the Texas flag and the party decor up through Christmas. Since there were so many decorations already up, it made sense to put the Texas tree up near all of the existing Texana. I had only one photo of that tree and it was a night shot so the quality isn't great. However, it had all of our Texas ornaments on it, silk bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush flowers spotted throughout. Conner's old lariat made a great garland, and the battered wooden Texas flag sign stood in as the tree topper. Burlap and bandana circled the base as a tree skirt and old boots and antlers represented presents.
Finally: the fifth tree. This was the tree in the living room and the one that received the most attention in the decorating process. We decided to go with a loose (very) coastal Georgia Christmas theme. A friend contributed cotton on the stalk from south-central Georgia and that was added to the tree along with faux metallic pheasant feathers, shells and sea stars, along with ornaments in gold, silver, blue and citrus green. More than 1,000 lights made this tree sparkle and the floral picks in silver and gold added to the shine.
The photo quality has me resolving to do better in 2012 - both in quantity and quality! Either I've got to learn to clean my Nikon DSLR sensor, or I've got to bite the bullet and send it off.
In any event - there's Christmas 2011 in a nutshell. I don't think we'll be in Georgia for Christmas next year, so I want to document our time here for this season.
Happy 2012 to you and yours ~ it's going to be a great year!
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