In addition to our regular tree, my mom always had an “elf tree.” It was three feet tall, with little elves all over it–not ornaments though. They had bendy arms and legs and various little accoutrements, candy canes and cute little ladders and stuff. I don’t know where she even got them, but they’re a nice memory.
She still uses my sister’s yarn-and-wallpaper angel made around 2nd grade. That’s cute. It’s held up well over the years. And a wreath I made in 3rd grade out of construction paper, cardboard, glitter, and glue. It’s starting to fall apart, though.
She also had an obsession with collecting Hallmark ornaments and holiday Barbies, but I wasn’t as fond of those. I mean, the Barbies looked pretty, but you couldn’t take them out of the box. And some of the Hallmarks looked cool (especially the light-up ones), but we weren’t supposed to touch them because they might break. And stuff that you can only look at isn’t fun for kids!
Probably the best memories I have from Christmas as a kid was the stuff we did, though, not just the stuff we put up around the house. We used to drive around for hours after dark looking at Christmas lights in December. And going live-tree shopping (before we went plastic) was always so much fun. And going to the seasonal section in American Sales to look at the ridiculously cool tree displays. And hot chocolate, waking up at 330 in the morning, and putting oranges in our stockings because that’s what Laura Ingalls Wilder used to get for Christmas.
We had what we called “springles” for ornaments. Basically, wire springs tapering to a point at both ends, which were covered in glitter. I don’t know if they were home made or some commercial offering, but they came out every Xmas, and they were usually put around the bottom because, being wire, they didn’t break.
I remember the Annual Tree Decorating Fight, but not fondly. My mother always wanted to put a gazillion lights on the tree, and my father and brother, who were in charge of actually doing the work of putting the lights on, wanted considerably fewer lights. But this fight was as much a tradition as the Thanksgiving turkey.
I had a HUGE stocking with my name on it. I think it was at least 2.5 feet tall. It was soft and fuzzy and I loved how it went from empty on Christmas Eve to full on Christmas morning.
The Santa without a body. He came in a box of mixed ornaments and it was really creepy - he was like this doll Santa head! We put him in the back of the tree every year. My brother and I will fight about that when my mom dies. I know it.
edit: Oh, and my mom’s amazingfeather tree her grandparents brought from Germany in the late 1880s. They were merchants and it’s quite apparently valuable now. I wish I had a pic of it, but it’s ‘up’ all year long, but on Christmas my mom puts a mini tree skirt around it.
The nativity scene. I remember that when I was little, I thought that my grandmother painted it, but I am almost certain that’s not true.
My siblings and I each had a bell that hung on the tree. Because they were not labeled, there was considerable dissension over which bell belonged to which child. (The white one is mine).
The bubble lights were my favorite. I was fascinated at how they operated.
Around the tree we always set up the model train. Lionel, “O” gauge. An engine that puffed smoke and some other accessories. A deluxe transformer that had four separate rheostats.
And every other year or so, our cat would climb up and over-balance the tree and tip it over, crashing down. We’d have such fun putting it upright and decorating it a second time.
There is actually a provision in my parent’s will that I get ALL the christmas decorations from their home. My mother has things from the late 60s that she painted as well as some earlier that my grandmother made. Each family member has a hand sewn stocking with the name embroidered on it and mom makes a new one for each birth. I didn’t want those to be divided, they should stay together. Each ornament has a memory and a meaning.
So, when my parent sat us down with a list of their belongings in order to divide them up so there would be no misunderstandings after they died, those were not on them. I told them sis and bro can have everything else, that is all I want. Sibs were find with it.
My mother had a 3 ft. wide starburst thing that was made from computer punchcards. Each card was rolled to make a point of the star, then glued in a multi-level pattern, then spraypainted gold. It was awesome. My dad still puts it up every year (and not much else besides that and the tree) in her memory.
Well, since the key word is fondly: The big C-9 bulbs lit up around the windows of our house, instead of the little mini-lights that have become ubiquitous and which have caused any number of undocumented suicides, murders and pet kicking.
I love the big bulbs too. I should look into getting some for our new house.
My favorite thing, that I have now inherited from my Grandmother, is a glass Santa filled with candy, like this one. Mine still has the candy too. It was made in Jeanette, PA which isn’t too far from where I grew up. As a kid, I think I was fascinated that it had 40 year old (now almost 80!) candy in it.
Ahhh, the traditional Ornament Squabble. My grandmother got each grandchild an ornament every year, usually variations on a theme so they were kind of similar, and there were some vintage ornaments inherited from Dad’s stepmother that came in pairs. A good solid scrap with my brother over which ornament was whose was just Standard Tree Procedure.
Mom assembles tree and arranges branches.
Dad puts on the lights while Mom gets out the ornament boxes and supervises the preliminary sorting/squabbling.
Mom puts on the garland and warns Dad to for Og’s sake not turn his back on us as he oversees the secondary sorting, wherein we look over each other’s ornament pile for things that rightfully belong to us.
Brother and I spend 20 minutes negotiating that if I get the sequined kangaroo instead of the sequined koala, he gets the macrame elephant instead of the macrame zebra.
Hot chocolate break. Children inspect each other’s cups to ensure equitable marshmallow allocation.
Kids finally put ornaments on tree while parents attempt to surgically sterilize themselves in the bathroom.
My parents still have most of the stuff we grew up with–in fact it’s *all *there, but some is too beat up to use now. Giant-bulbed tree lights–some from the 50’s, with plastic or foil reflectors. Bubble lights. A Nativity set, very Catholic, bought in pieces in Japan in the 50’s. An early plastic angel tree topper that must be even older, but had to be replaced with a homemade angel–now my taste in tree angels is minimalist, and I can’t stand the foofy sparkly ones in stores. It wouldn’t be properly Christmas without a whole lot of ancient beaten-up decorations that don’t match!
My own taste as a kid ran to the gaudy and the cheap. It’s probably my parents’ own fault, as they always took us Christmas shopping at Pic-n-Save, and we would buy each other the most atrocious shiny ornaments possible. I remember once they had a table of “beautiful” oil lamp-things covered in big sparkly glass jewels–I wanted one so badly but wasn’t allowed to get it.
Our own Christmas decor definitely runs to the same tradition of the homemade and the mismatched. Our house is the opposite of stuff like this. That is seriously what many of my more decor-minded friends’ homes look like–two or more themed trees, with one ‘kids’ tree’ for their ornaments, is also common. Forget that–we go out to my dad’s back acre and cut one of his overgrown pines, and it sprawls all over the room.
And my Nativity set does actually resemble the old one quite closely, though with fewer chips off of noses and hooves.
If it was the stuff that hung straight down, and you really hung the strands individually (and probably saved them every year), then it was lead. Only later did the lighter foil stuff come on the market, that you just sort of throw on the tree. (Well, throwing is what my brothers and I did!)
I am privileged to have a few glass ornaments likely dating back to the 30’s when my parents were first married. I also have a metal bell that I remember a new set maybe the early 50’s. I bought our string of bubble lights in the mid 70’s.
What I miss most of all were the metal icicles that suddenly disappeared about 1968. Likely the ones I remember were aluminum, and not tinsel. I have threatened to make my own by running aluminum foil through a paper shredder. What happened, the heavy hand of the government? Yes, they did lead to short circuits. They stopped my electric train many times.
My parents were poor when they married so a lot of the ornaments we used were from dad’s grandma and mom. Neither had good taste in ornaments.
One thing they had from great grandma were these little plastic carriage lanterns with shiny sides and a bird and a plastic candle inside. Ugly and tacky. But I requested that I got to keep the last one when mom liquidated her collection because…well, great grandma, yaknow?
My grandma was a crazy bat and she loved making dolls and ornaments from fabric you buy at the store. You cut out the patterns, sew them together and stuff. Like this. I have a family of Christmas-themed bears that I hang on my fake ficus every year in memory of grandma.
My mom does whatever artistic thing she wants with her tree now. Except she is expected to have 2 things:
The big bulbs that say my name and my brother’s name.
The colorful wooden ornaments shaped like a J and a B with our names on them. And the dogbone-shaped one that matches them with our old dog’s name on it.
I have the stocking that my mother knitted for me; red and white candy-striped with my name and little ornaments embroidered on it. It’s pulled out of shape now so it’s more like a tube. I also have my late sister’s that’s mint green and white.
We have a little celluloid snowman ornament that’s about 3’’ tall, with a black top hat and red bow tie. It’s hollow, with a little hole in the back so you could theoretically put something in there, but it’s really too small to put anything in there but maybe jelly beans. I don’t think we ever filled it with anything. But it’s our oldest ornament; probably from the '40s.
My family had a Nativity scene that I used to pretend was Noah’s Ark when I was little. I’d cram all the figurines into the stable. Everything fit, barely.
When I had a son, I bought a little plastic set of Nativity figures for him. Once he put Mary into a little car and zoomed away from Joseph. This struck me as very sensible. “I’ll meet you in Bethlehem. You can ride the donkey.”
Oh, and also my parents would always bring down a thin, wooden “fireplace” on which to hang the stockings every year.
