Christmas Day

FIRST AND FOREMOST

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

And in keeping with the season: a few more photos of Christmas at my house:

In the living room, we have the family tree with ornaments we have been given or have collected or have made over the 39 years [on Jan. 10, 2010] of our married life ... reflecting our enthusiasms, our fads and our activities or those of our three children. Backyard birding, ballet dancing, violin and trumpet lessons, the Nutcracker Suite performances, dollhouses, a myriad of brass name ornaments used as gift tags, my own collection of Nativity scene and Madonna and child ornaments, all the angels for Angela, "teacher" ornaments given to me by students, ornaments featuring the word PEACE, a Beatrix Potter ornament marking the year Danny just had to read everyone of her books ... that and more are usually all there on the tree ... a visible family history. This year, however, in deference to my 2 year old grandson, I have used only my wooden and my cloth ornaments on the tree. I want to protect him from the breakables ... I have no intention of ruining Christmas with an emergency room visit.

My Creche is also displayed in the living room. Every year I promise myself that I will get a more elegant nativity scene [ I covet one of those ornate, very Italianate Fontanini sets] and every year I resurrect this inexpensive set purchased from the Lillian Vernon catalog when Bill and I were first married and money was tight. This is the one I packed through all those early moves [eight times in six years] when Bill and I were still students. This is the one I used when telling my children the Christmas story. Now, I am not normally sentimental but for some reason, I never get around to replacing this set. Someday, I expect, I will indulge myself with another and more beautiful creche set but even then I will have to tuck this one in some other corner of the house, perhaps the master bedroom.